Palm oil : “Ignorance is no excuse”

Palm oil has crept into just about every kind of product on high street shelves. Campaigners argue that right under our noses, we’ve been infested by an ingredient responsible for causing the mass destruction of millions of acres of rainforests across the world and pushing a number of animals to the brink of extinction.

Lotte Pegler examines the issues within the palm oil industry and the work being done to combat it.

Bread. Cereal. Shampoo. Toothpaste. Everyone chucks them into their basket, barely a second thought before moving on to the next aisle. How many people actually check to see what’s on the back of every packet? Who actually cares about the growing industry reliance on palm oil?

Some don’t understand. Some don’t care. Media coverage of the issue has skyrocketed over the past couple of years, both nationally and internationally — yet campaigners still worry that the public is unaware of the dangers.

Many people either don’t quite understand the impact of endorsing palm oil products, or simply don’t want to know — preferring instead to stay in a content state of naivety.

Palm oil comes hand in hand with numerous controversial issues, health wise and also for environmental reasons.

To keep up with the increasingly high demand for palm oil, acre upon acre of rainforest must be cut down, becoming a major contributor to mass deforestation.

This results in huge loss of animal habitat for endangered species. Over the past 16 years, over 100,000 orangutans have been killed as a result of the deforestation due to palm oil.

The conversion from rainforest to plantation has also resulted in huge production of carbon emissions into the air, contributing to climate change.

Sarah Engerran, mum of three, from Chichester, has been trying to boycott palm oil products.

She said: “I have followed with great sadness the suffering that has been caused to orangutans by the destruction of rainforest areas to clear the way for palm oil farms and cannot support this.

“I am therefore wary of purchasing any products that use palm oil in their manufacture or that contain palm oil and will not knowingly buy them.

“In that way, I feel that I am not contributing to the extinction of a species for the monetary gain of human beings.”

Ray Cobbett, Co-coordinator for Havant & Hampshire Friends of the Earth, is also particularly interested in palm oil after spending time living in Malaysia.

Whilst believing it is unfair to say that the general public are naive regarding the palm oil industry, he did acknowledge that some are more aware than others. He said: “People must find out what we’re buying.

“Ignorance is no excuse. There’s masses of information available. Use it. Find out whether companies claiming to be sustainable are genuine.”

In December, Iceland’s Christmas advert — deemed “brave and necessary” by Jessica Brown in the Guardian — encouraging a ‘No Palm Oil Christmas”, was removed from all platforms following concerns from Clearcast, the industry body responsible for vetting adverts.

The removal was on the grounds that the advert had been made several months ago by Greenpeace. Clearcast deemed it as having a political nature — which is prohibited.

Few know quite how much of their weekly shop is plagued with those two little words, and companies are reluctant to help make it any clearer.

Connor Herrington, 18, from Chichester said: “Up until recently I had no idea how big of a deal palm oil was. More people need to be educated about it so we can make a change. If something doesn’t happen quickly we have no idea what will happen. And that’s really scary.”

Even once you’re aware of the negative impact of palm oil, you then face the near impossible task of deciphering which products actually contain it.

The list of synonyms for palm oil is infinite, each one more complex and cryptic than the next, and very few even hinting that they are palm derivatives. Aluminium Isostearates, Dilinoleic acid, Dried Yeast, Glycerine, Fatty Acids, Grapefruit seed extract. The list goes on.

But no matter how much companies try to disguise their use of palm oil, its destructive impact continues to be felt across the world.