Do you give a monkeys about palm oil?

By Huw Thomas

Even the most moralistic must often wrestle with their own internal demons. Take your average Greenpeace demonstrator. The ‘Green-ness’ of their endeavours – jetting all over the world to put the mockers on the latest environmental outrage to pique their interest – might be easily called into question. And the ‘Peace’ bit? Breaking and entering, graffiti, vandalism and intimidation are acts that ordinarily earn an ASBO, not widespread respect.

An activist’s response to these charges would be that their actions raise the profile of issues that may have gone unnoticed, so a little contradictory “do as we say, not as we do” thinking can be excused. But then what happens when the cameras are switched off, the protestors go home and put their well-travelled feet up? Do they refuel with a Kit Kat bar (chief target for the anti-Nestle mob) in front of their made-in-Taiwan TV? Where does their moral compass point when thoughts turn to the economic opportunities their actions often deny individuals in the third world? Economic opportunities that they themselves enjoyed in order to acquire such a conscience?

And so to palm oil. Techniques used in its production in countries such as Malaysia (the world’s leading producer of palm oil, supplying 13 million tons per year) and Indonesia (one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world) have attracted controversy. At a consumer level, palm oil is a cheap alternative to trans fatty acids. It is found in a variety of chocolate products, cakes, noodles, crisps and other snacks. You’ve almost certainly eaten large quantities of it yourself, despite the oil’s reputation taking a hit some 20 years ago when US studies suggested a link between the oil and heart disease.

Palm oil is used extensively by a number of food giants, most notably Nestle, who buy up a fair proportion of the 26 million tons that are produced annually in tropical countries. Its production requires intense farming that can strip vast swathes of rainforest, destroying the natural habitat of a number of endangered species. Not only is palm oil production responsible for the destruction of carbon dioxide-absorbing rainforests, but it also adds harmful gases to the environment. No wonder Greenpeace have made it their public enemy No.1.

In April this year, Greenpeace campaigners launched an audacious stunt at Nestle’s annual shareholders’ meeting, breaking into the roof of the hall and abseiling in bearing a banner that read: “Nestle, Give the orangutans a break!”, while a number of other activists campaigned outside the building – in the Swiss city of Lausanne – handing out leaflets while dressed as orangutans. The great apes’ natural habitat in Borneo has been severely affected by the actions of some of Nestle’s largest providers of palm oil, particularly the Sinar Mas company.

Little more than a month before this stunt Nestle became embroiled in a Facebook row, amateurishly fending off accusatory comments from some 90,000 ‘fans’ of their page; their unethical practises called into question by an army of disgruntled and vocal consumers.

In this increasingly opinionated world of ours, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter provide a voice for the voiceless, and Nestle will have to learn to adapt to a consumer base that has both the means and the will to create a PR storm for them.

However, consumers also have a responsibility to tally their own sensibilities and morals with those of the demands of big business. Current projections by the Oil World trade journal anticipate that we will consume double the amount of palm oil annually by 2050. Third world nations are growing at an unprecedented rate; their economies are racing headlong into the free market that has so benefited the western world for centuries. To them, sustainable and ethical business practises come a distant second behind hard profit. Western consumers and campaigners need only look at their own countries’ pasts before tutting their condemnation, and work towards a solution that suits both sensibilities.