Demand for sustainable palm oil: are we conserving tropical biodiversity?

This event will include contributions from government, retail and manufacturing sectors, academics and other stakeholders, who will consider the challenges and issues of demand for palm oil and discuss options available to the UK consumer market.

Already present in over 50% of packaged products on the supermarket shelf and with a versatile range of uses from biscuits to biofuels, demand for the world’s most popular vegetable oil is growing. Oil palm has been touted as a ‘miracle crop’, which can produce five times the yield of other vegetable-oil crops and support economic growth in developing countries. However, it is best suited to moist tropical rainforest regions, which not only play a critical role in maintaining climate but also are the most biodiverse terrestrial ecosystems on earth. Although over 50 million tons of palm oil is traded annually, only 15% is voluntarily certified under the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and only half of this is sold at a premium owing to a lack of demand for the certified sustainable product. Thus there is little incentive for suppliers to improve on-the-ground practises or safeguard biodiversity. In addition, debate in the UK and other European countries has increasingly questioned both the volume of palm-oil consumption, and the credibility of sustainable palm oil with regards to conserving biodiversity and minimising deforestation. This event will include contributions from government, retail and manufacturing sectors, academics and other stakeholders, who will consider the challenges and issues of demand for palm oil and discuss options available to the UK consumer market.

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