About Palm Oil

Palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil in the world. It can be found in approximately 50% of supermarket products, including baked goods, shampoos, air fresheners, cosmetics, toothpaste, and biodiesel, to name a few.

Every hour, palm oil manufacturers clear a piece of rainforest, jungle, or forest equivalent to 300 football fields. The endangered animals who live in these habitats are often killed during this process, or are left without a home or source of food. Palm oil production also has a major impact on climate change and the overall health of our planet because African palms cannot clean the air or support other life as efficiently as natural foliage.

What You Can Do: Reduce Palm Oil Use

• By limiting your consumption of palm oil, you reduce the demand for the crop, and remaining rainforests and jungles can be preserved.
• If you have to buy products that contain palm oil, look for the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) seal. The RSPO works to make responsible palm oil farming practices the norm, ensuring that wildlife is preserved and people are not harmed in the process of producing palm oil
• Even if a product label does not list palm oil, this controversial product might still be present. Palm oil has over 170 different names, including glyceryl, stearate, stearic acid, vegetable fat, vegetable oil, palmityl alcohol, palmolein, octyl palmitate, and etyl palmitate.