What is…the buzz about sustainable palm oil?
Ahhh, the renewable resource conundrum. How do you really deter
mine the renewability of a resource? By rate or regeneration? Availability? Potential to re-grow? Monetary investments to ‘renew’ it? Natural balance?
Palm Oil, the latest explosion on the renewables market came under scrutiny for being a root cause of severe deforestation. Greenpeace and other environmental groups internationally protested specific companies that were harvested palm oil in unsustainable methods. In a twofold act, there was a push to make palm oil sustainable to help secure the growing market for palm oil as well as to provide a viable long-term product. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) formed to help provide guidelines based on a scientific understanding of the natural thresholds and best practices for harvesting palm oil.
The buzz? The Netherlands has publicly committed itself to be the first Country to use only sustainable palm oil by the year 2015. Companies have in turn been dropping Sinar Mas as a palm oil supplier after Greenpeace’s attacks on its questionable practices that may have led to severe deforestation. Among those companies Nestle, Cadbury, and Kraft were quick to drop the company. More progressive companies are themselves committing to responsible palm oil sourcing including Seventh Generation and General Mills.
Photo Credits 1 and Greenpeace.
Comments
-
December 15th, 2010
It’s a simple fact that any industry has to push towards sustainable practices to survive long term. Unfortunately there are often poor countries where they are allowed to take shortcuts for short term profits. The richer countries feed the cycle by demanding low priced products and turning a blind eye towards the negative impact. It’s great that Greenpeace is able to help uncover some of the worst offenders, but there needs to be more done to stop all unsustainable practices.
It’s good to see the Netherlands leading by example by only using sustainable palm oil by 2015. Pledges like this will help reduce the cause of deforestation.
This is a good alternative on the major oil products that we are using today.
I think Palm oil, coconut oil and palm kernel oil are edible plant oils derived from the fruits of palm trees….
It’s a good thing that these big-name companies are shunning Sinar Mas. Hope more take their lead and look to sustainable palm oil.
who calls themself komodo dragon ? GOML
@Online, There definitely needs to be something done, especially “intentional” and deforestation that is not accomplishing anything useful for anyone.
-Jean
I think the people making money off of the deforestation would disagree. To them it likely just seems like a valid opportunity for profit. Punishment would be tricky as some amount of deforestation is acceptable.
Aluminum, the same thing can be said about anything else in life or the business world, its a natural thought really.
-Jean
The demand of Palm Oil increasing day by day and I think above mentioned solution is good to fulfill the requirement. Its good oil for better health.
It’s a shame to see any deforestation. Small or large scale.
I do see this leading to even more deforestation.
- Robert
The benefits of bamboo is that you can cut it without killing the plant. Does an oil source exist where you can harvest the oil, without killing the tree?
Sustainable palm oil is a good alternate for us. Just want to say your article is striking. The clarity in your post is simply striking and i can take for granted you are an expert on this subject. Well with your permission allow me to grab your rss feed to keep up to date with forthcoming post.
Every country’s government has an obligation to ensure that business is done in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner. It’s too easy to make some excuse about how it would cut into profits too much. Really though, is destroying the environment worth those temporary profits?
For selfishness and in search of make money people are using deforestation. They must know it’s bed effect on all human beings. So i wanna to say please avoid it and try to grow new plants…..
Excellent Post. Every government of certain country’s should ensure that there is environmentally friendly manner.
I think thats is a good alternative
The internet is really helping causes like this. We simply cannot depend on non-renewable resources. The internet helps develop mass exposure to these issues and forces companies to change their practices. Consumers can also do their part by being selective about products which are not environmentally friendly.
Plam oil is less costly as compare to others.Govt giving subsidy on it in few areas.We should make it part of our daily life.Its really good alternate.I appreciate your post on this awesome topic…
Excellent overview, it pointed me out something I didn’t realize before. I should encourage for your wonderful work. I am hoping the same best work from you in the future as well. Thank you for sharing this information with us. s
I eat this cereal called “Cookie Bitez” because it’s Gluten Free and I’m a Coeliac, but my friend and I noticed that it contains palm oil. I emailed the company to ask them where their palm oil is from, and they said it comes from “sustainable plantations”, but didn’t tell me WHERE these plantations are! Is there such thing as a sustainable palm oil plantation? I don’t want to eat anything with palm oil but it’s so hard when they don’t label it or tell you where it’s from!!
Talking about green energy and all is great , I’m living in Belgium and in the year 2020 all energy provided will be from Windmills … never the less prices for energy are rising day after day ? How come . because the supliers of electricity are loosing money at people who buy solarpanels etc … so it’s the small man who pays the price
I see that you are one of the most great resources of palm oil. this is one of the best way to conserve nature
Sounds good but how exactly are they going to go about making palm oil sustainable or harvesting it in a sustainable way? There’s such a huge demand for it that no matter how sustainable they try to be, they will run out of places to plant palm trees without cutting down other trees. Is there no palm oil alternative like a substitute? Is it really necessary to use it in almost everything?
We should push up the growing of olives so that we have olives in abundant amount.Also because of the olive oil is very important for health.
Deforestation affect the environment very much and this is the very cause of Glacier melting process.So there should be kind of law over deforestation so that the people do not cut the trees just for livlihood.
The demand of Palm Oil increasing day by day and I think above mentioned solution is good to fulfill the requirement.
ironically the demand for many ‘greener’ bio fuels has been leading to some similar problems…
So there should be kind of law over deforestation so that the people do not cut the trees just for livlihood. this is an exact point of view.
The post is very inspirational.Thanks for sharing the post.
If you study palm oil closely, you will find that it is not surprising palm oil can be used as a substitute to most oil products out there.
We should all be against the idea of deforestation. It is a very cruel act just for the sake of livelihood too.
Oil Palm plantations are growing at rapid rates in the tropical nations of Indonesia and Malaysia. These lands were once covered by upwards to 90% rain forest just a century ago, while that has declined presently to less than 50%.
The demand of Palm Oil increasing day by day and I think above mentioned solution is good to fulfill the requirement.
Sustainable palm oil is here to stay as we see the demand getting higher and higher.
The clarity in your post is simply striking and i can take for granted you are an expert on this subject. Well with your permission allow me to grab your rss feed to keep up to date with forthcoming post.
I would need to read more on this but if it is the cause for deforestation then it is obviously quite counter productive for the environment i’d say!
Yes its great that we are finding new ways to help the environment and I agree that palm oil can surely prove very useful in the future
Green is good. Support the long term goal!
Yes all this type of thing will definitely help to counter all the climate issues that we are facing in the future
Yes this is great and going green is really what the world needs now to keep things in better shape with the environment
Yes it makes sense with the enviroment right now for sure