The impact of misinformation on environmental outcomes? Case example: Palm Oil
The vegetable oil agriculture context
Vegetable oils occupy roughly 37% of agricultural cropland globally. Their consumption has dramatically increased, with a 10-fold rise in soybean oil and a 25-fold rise in palm oil consumption since 1960. The expansion of oil crop production, primarily in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, Argentina, and Brazil, has led to severe environmental consequences, including deforestation and threats to biodiversity.
We know that one of the greatest contributors to biodiversity loss globally is the expansion of agriculture (IPBES, 2019). Agriculture is also a significant threat for climate change - e.g. agriculture that requires more land has been shown to have higher associated emissions
Palm Oil: The Villain or the Scape Goat?
Palm oil is overwhelmingly seen as the "worst" vegetable oil. In a recent study, compared to other oils, perceptions were overwhelmingly negative, with a focus on deforestation and orangutan endangerment.
Palm is a uniquely productive crop. Compared to other oilseeds, it requires fewer resources/land/water, with estimates of being 6-10x more efficient at producing oil on a per hectare basis. Outside of efficiency, millions of individuals, especially smallholder farmers, depend on this crop for their livelihoods, without it, income and food insecurity would likely become a big issue for them. Despite its environmental impact, palm oil is highly land-efficient, producing 40% of global vegetable oil supply while occupying only 5.5% of global cropland for oil crops
There have been ethical and environmental issues with palm, absolutely - the fact we’re sourcing from richly biodiverse areas is challenging. There are NGOs, such as the RSPO, working to do things better (DISCLAIMER, that the cosmetics industry disproportionately supports, compared to other sectors who have much larger palm needs)
The Cosmetics Context
Specific to cosmetics ingredients, the sector started using palm to move away from fossil fuels. In e.g. surfactant production, saturated fats seem to be the best option since they’re easier to modify, which is why we shifted to palm. There was also already so much palm oil production already from the food sector, which had palm kernal as a waste - the chemicals sector created value to turn this into a co-product.
With the palm=bad narratives, there has been a push to use different oils. For surfactants specifically, these oils should have a lot of saturated fats, which is why coconut oil has been seen as the alternative... but is this actually better?
Coconut has been generally viewed as the environmentally friendly alternative.
Reality, we’re just more ignorant of the impacts because there has been less study. What we do know - is it’s less efficient, it’s also derived from sensitive spaces, there are also social problems. By making these quick switches, we’re really just shifting the problem in a way that likely will become more destructive - a case of regrettable alternatives. Studies now show that coconut oil production threatens more species per unit than palm oil, yet this issue remains largely absent from public discourse.
Ultimately, there is a lot of complexity around the sustainability of oils, and this complexity (and science in general) has been largely abscent from the major public narratives. The impact of consumer misperceptions re - the sustainability of oils? It has a good chance of translating to higher e.g. environmental impact (more research is needed to better understand this impact). All this noise creates distractions on the steps we actually should be taking to improve sustainability.
Red flag when you’re looking at sustainability related information: blanket statements. In almost every case it’s going to be complex and it’ll depend.
References
Brandi, C. (2021). The Interaction of Private and Public Governance: The Case of Sustainability Standards for Palm Oil. The European Journal of Development Research, 33(6), 1574-1595.
Candellone, E., Aleta, A., Ferraz de Arruda, H., Meijaard, E., & Moreno, Y. (2024). Characteristics of the vegetable oil debate in social-media and its implications for sustainability. Communications Earth & Environment, 5(1), 391.
IPBES. (2019). Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.
Meijaard, E., Abrams, J. F., Juffe-Bignoli, D., Voigt, M., & Sheil, D. (2020). Coconut oil, conservation and the conscientious consumer. Current Biology, 30(13), R757-R758.
Meijaard, E., Virah-Sawmy, M., Newing, H. S., Ingram, V., Holle, M. J. M., Pasmans, T., ... & Sheil, D. (2024). Exploring the future of vegetable oils.
Santika, T., Wilson, K. A., Law, E. A., St John, F. A., Carlson, K. M., Gibbs, H., ... & Struebig, M. J. (2021). Impact of palm oil sustainability certification on village well-being and poverty in Indonesia. Nature Sustainability, 4(2), 109-119.
Searchinger, T. D., Wirsenius, S., Beringer, T., & Dumas, P. (2018). Assessing the efficiency of changes in land use for mitigating climate change. Nature, 564(7735), 249-253.