Why the Palm Oil Conversation is Evolving

For years, the public conversation around palm oil was stuck in a simple loop: palm oil is bad.

The narrative is simple, emotionally driven and incredibly enduring! Powerful images of the devastating loss of wildlife habitats across Indonesia and Malaysia, despondent orangutans, and monoculture crops where virgin rainforest once stood were all the proof that was needed to cement this view in the media and the minds of consumers.

The huge progress made on improving the sustainability of palm oil over the decades did little, if anything, to change the narrative until very recently.

Today, that is changing – and over the past couple of years, we’re starting to see some much-needed nuance enter the discussion. The conversation is maturing, as many begin to understand the importance of sustainably sourced, segregated and certified palm oil, the complexity of global commodity supply chains and the growing raft of legislation designed to protect rainforest habitats across the world.

Crucially, the industry and increasingly the public have recognised that sustainability, rather than boycotts are the key to pushing the conversation forward.

The Start of the Conversation

The sustainable palm oil movement isn’t new – but efforts to communicate the benefits of sustainable palm have been much less successful than the positive changes made by the industry over the past two decades.

This is despite the fact that the narrative has remained fairly constant for 20 years!

The rationale behind the core message has always been sound. Palm oil is the most efficient vegetable oil in the world, supplying 35% of the world’s vegetable oil supply from just 10% of the global land dedicated to oil crops.

(Image credit: IUCN)

Implementing sustainable practices means we can benefit from the efficiency and versatility of palm, while minimising the negative impact on people and planet. Not choosing palm oil means choosing another oil, and the impact could be significantly worse. The most sustainable alternative to palm oil is sustainable palm.

Reticence to Get Involved

So why didn’t the message cut through?

We’ve already touched on one of the challenges – the anti palm narrative was already set, and backed up by evocative images of destroyed landscapes and displaced, despondent wildlife. This narrative was based in reality – historically, the expansion of palm oil was responsible for all these problems, and to this day, rainforests are being cleared for oil palm.

Trying to challenge this narrative while the industry was still involved in widespread deforestation was always going to fail.

At the same time, even those making progress were reluctant to challenge the narrative. Many major players in the industry stayed fairly quiet. They were happier to keep their heads down and remain under the radar, rather than risk communicating about their imperfect though tangible progress – knowing how strong the anti-palm narrative was.

There have been, of course, efforts from some to talk about the progress being made. The RSPO, and other major industry players such as AAK, Daabon Group and KTC Edibles in the UK acted as a vanguard for the message. NGOs like the WWF also led the charge to inject some nuance into the conversation.