Monkey Monday: This Easter, buy an egg that doesn’t kill apes
This weekend, millions of us will eat chocolate eggs to celebrate a man returning from the dead after a particularly vicious form of capital punishment. If that’s not joyous enough, our tasty delights will have signed a death warrant for orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and countless other apes.
It’s all thanks to palm oil, the wonder vegetable oil that’s found in many foods, cosmetics and biofuel. It’s been used for thousands of years as a cooking oil and lubricant, but in the last half-century palm oil has been industrially farmed to meet growing demand, increasing from around half a million tonnes per year in 1962 to 48 million tonnes in 2008. Demand is expected to more than double by 2030 and triple by 2050.
Some of those palms were grown on re-used rubber plantations from the previous century, but the great majority are grown in vast new plantations culled from the rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia, the world’s largest producers, followed by Nigeria and Thailand. In Colombia, the outbreak of peace has seen a rapid increase in oil palm cultivation, while the arrival of limited stability in the Democratic Republic of Congo has opened up its fertile rainforests to logging companies who will be followed by the palm oil growers.
Oil palm cultivation in Malaysia and Indonesia is by far the most important factor in the collapse of orangutan populations, and an explosion in central Africa will do the same to endangered chimpanzees, western lowland gorillas and bonobos as well as many species of monkey.
So what is palm oil, and is it possible to enjoy an Easter egg without killing apes and monkeys? (Not to mention sumatran elephants, tigers, rhinos, clouded leopards, pangolins and tapirs).
1 What products use palm oil? Although it’s a widely-used cooking oil in west and central African countries, palm oil really came to prominence as an ingredient of cosmetics, detergents and modern food processing. As well as chocolate, you’ll find it in ‘butter-style’ spreads, pastry dough, baked goods and ready meals. It’s an essential ingredient in soft centres, toffees and nougat.
Palm oil is even used in biodiesel, although this is being phased out in the EU to reduce the use of food products as fuels. The organic waste from palm oil processing can also be used as biofuel pellets.
2 Why is palm oil so attractive? In soap, palm oil creates a creamy lather that leaves no stickiness, and leaves skin feeling ‘squeaky clean’. In foods, the solid form (stearin) was taken up as a healthier replacement for butter or trans fats, although that reputation has since been tarnished.
Producers argue that palm isn’t the worst vegetable oil: it yields four times per hectare as much as rapeseed and requires a tenth of the pesticides and fertiliser that soya requires. That means that supermarkets can continue to supply cheap food, and it’s the poorest consumers who would find it hardest to avoid palm oil.
3 What is ethical palm oil? The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil was created in 2004 by food manufacturers, palm oil producers and non-governmental organizations like the World Wildlife Fund to address the ethical problems around palm oil. It’s not only an environmentally damaging crop, but one which comes with issues such as forced labour, government corruption and the loss of land by indigenous communities.
The RSPO works on the assumption that palm oil is an unavoidable necessity, and the destruction done so far is something that people will have to live with (less so for the apes). Food producers commit to source Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO) and work with suppliers to ensure it can be traced back to the mills and farmers.
Sustainable plantations, such as they are, must maintain high conservation value areas, protect endangered species and provide wildlife corridors to prevent animals becoming trapped in pockets of rainforest, and encourage best practices throughout their supply chains. They’re audited by a third party and members can be suspended for failing to meet their commitments.
In return, members can print the CSPO badge on their products, and companies in the EU also have to list the different vegetable oils in their food products, so if you see palm oil listed without the badge, it’s not ethically-sourced. Other products can still hide it in a range of sciencey-sounding names.
There’s also a higher standard promoted by Greenpeace through the Palm Oil Innovation Group (POIG) to halt deforestation and protect and maintain peatlands.
Palm oil plantations are usually cleared by burning land, in fires that often get out of control and can set light to vast areas of peat and seams of coal close to the surface. These coal and peat fires may burn for years, and the process unlocks vast amounts of carbon without even using it for fuel. That makes deforestation the only sustainable goal.
4 But is it ethical. Is it really? The Sustainable Palm Oil Transparency Toolkit (SPOTT) is produced by the Zoological Society of London for the RSPO, and it makes depressing reading, with just eight of the world’s 49 large palm oil producers scoring better than 66%. Many RSPO members score very poorly, 13 years after it was established.
The RSPO has been accused of failing to police its members strongly-enough, with the suspension and reinstatement of IOI Group in 2016 leading to the resignation of two NGOs. At the same time, growers who meet sustainability criteria are frustrated that their more expensive oil isn’t being bought by the food giants who have made public commitments to being sustainable.
And with a company of Nestle’s poor ethical reputation as one of its members, can the RSPO ever be truly trustworthy?
5 So where can I find my ape-friendly Easter eggs? If you’re willing to accept that the CSPO badge is more than just a greenwashing exercise, then you’ve got to find it. Because palm oil is often seen as a sign of cheap chocolate, it’s often a small logo on the base of packaging.
Ethical Consumer magazine seems to be the standard for finding products that use sustainable palm oil or are free from it entirely. Not surprisingly, spending more usually gets you a greener product.
The most eggcellent in their 2017 scorecard are Plamil, Booja Booja, Cocoa Loco, Divine, Montezuma and Moo Free. The Humpty Dumpty’s are anything by Nestle, Smarties, Kit Kat, Aero, Twirl, Creme Egg and Dairy Milk.
For supermarket brands, look at Waitrose, Co-op, M&S and Sainsbury’s, and avoid ASDA, Morrisons, Tesco, Aldi, Lidl, Iceland, Booths, or Ocado.
Chocolate brands rated best for sustainability or non-use of palm oil are Booja Booja (organic, palm oil free company), Divine (Fairtrade, palm oil free company), Cocoa Loco (organic), Montezuma (organic), Vivani (organic), Ferrero Rocher, Raffaello, Mondelez brands (Green & Black’s Organic Collection, Milk Tray, Roses, Heroes, Terry’s Chocolate Orange, Terry’s All Gold, Toblerone), Mars brands (Celebrations), Guylian, Lindt (Lindor, Lindt), Waitrose, Co-op, M&S and Sainsbury’s.
Palm oil shame goes to Thorntons, Elizabeth Shaw, ASDA, Morrisons, Tesco, Aldi, Lidl and Iceland.
