Defining Sustainable Palm Oil – Henry Epling
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The College of Wooster The Palm Oil Industry – Destructive or Sustainable? Defining Sustainable Palm Oil By Henry Epling Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of Independent Study Thesis Senior Thesis Supervised by: Matt Mariola Environmental Studies Program 2019-2020 i Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank the St. Louis Zoo for opening my eyes to the reality of the snack food industry. If I hadn’t attended the zoo’s day camp 15 years ago, I would’ve never developed this immense passion I now have that’s pushed me to research such an important topic for my Independent Study. Thank you Professor Mariola for being such a great advisor for my Independent Study. Your guidance and advice throughout my research have pushed me to do more each week. Even during some of the busiest weeks of my college career, I strived to continue researching knowing that any amount of work was improving my study. With every meeting, your knowledge of the environment inspired me to continue learning in the field of environmental studies, and to continually improve my sustainability efforts to decrease my impact on the environment. I’d also like to thank my wonderful girlfriend, Kassady. From giving me advice on formatting to supporting me on the rough days to checking in on me during the long days/nights, she was always pushing me to do more with my research. I love you, and I couldn’t have done this without you. Thank you so much. Thanks to everyone on the Fighting Scots cross country team, especially Coach Rice and Coach Ju. I’m very fortunate to have been part of such an amazing family these past four years. Even if I wasn’t always inspired on the field, everyone provided the welcoming community that helped me take a break from academics and get right back into that grind mindset. To the brotherhood of Beta Kappa Phi, thank you. To be part of such a diverse group I can call my brothers has kept me sane throughout college. From study sessions to meals at Lowry to hanging out nearly every single day, I’ve always had my brothers to lean on in times of need. Thank you to my fellow jazz musicians I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to perform with. Particularly, thank you to Jack Steward, my bass teacher, for always checking in on my progress with research each week and having a great sense of humor. Wednesdays have usually been my busiest, most sleep-deprived days throughout college, but you always managed to find a way to make me smile. Most importantly, I’d like to thank my family. Thank you, Mom for inspiring me to be the “executive” that gets things done. Thank you, Dad for also showing me how to be strong and fight for what’s right. Most of all, thank you both for supporting my consumer decisions by not buying products containing palm oil when I’m home. I will always be grateful for the love, support, and guidance you’ve given me. I couldn’t have made it this far without you. Tommy. Julia. Charlotte. Thank you. You’re the greatest siblings I could’ve ever asked for. I can’t wait to see you all graduate from college and do so many big things in life. I love you all. ii Abstract Palm oil comes from the fruits of the African oil palm tree and is an ingredient in half of all packaged snack foods and many other products such as toothpaste and shampoo. As an industrial crop, it has continued increasing in demand and expanded to take over nearly 40% of all vegetable oil production worldwide. The overview takes a look at palm oil production from seedling to plantation to palm oil mills and further down the market to your supermarket shelves. This chapter ends by taking a brief look into the sustainability of the palm oil industry. So what does sustainable palm oil production even mean? I take a look into the history of the sustainability concept and follow up by building a theoretical framework on the three pillars of sustainability and sustainable development: environmental, economic, and social. I performed meta analyses on five case studies in order to assess the current and potential future directions of sustainability for each of these three pillars. What I found was that the palm oil industry does show signs of potential to become much more sustainable. My data shows that it is not the oil palm tree itself that is unsustainable, but rather the organizational cultures, plantation operations, and widespread lack of compliance that has resulted in little to no sustainability efforts. A few attempts are being made to come up with a sustainable alternative ingredient to palm oil. However, the oil palm actually produces yields higher than any other vegetable oil in the market. Due to the continually growing and massive expansion of the palm oil industry over the last few decades, there are a number of different ways that the palm oil industry can be made much more sustainable if the proper steps are taken. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………………….i Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………………..ii 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1 2. Palm Oil Overview .............................................................................................................................. 5 I. History, Biology, and Growing Conditions of Palm Oil .................................................................... 5 II. Refinery Processes and Nutritional Profile of Palm Oil .................................................................... 8 III. Fertilization of Palm Oil and Herbicides Used .............................................................................. 14 IV. The Debate Over Palm Oil Sustainability ..................................................................................... 17 3. Theory ............................................................................................................................................... 27 History of Sustainability Concept ...................................................................................................... 27 Economic Sustainability and Sustainable Development ...................................................................... 31 Environmental Sustainability and Sustainable Development .............................................................. 41 Social Theory on Sustainability and Sustainable Development ........................................................... 47 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................ 53 4. Methods ............................................................................................................................................ 55 5. Results .............................................................................................................................................. 63 Meta-Analysis 1: “What Are the Limits to Oil Palm Expansion?” ...................................................... 63 Meta-Analysis 2: “Study on The Environmental Impact of Palm Oil Consumption and on Existing Sustainability Standards” ................................................................................................................... 68 A. Social Sustainability: ................................................................................................................. 69 B. Environmental Sustainability & Sustainable Development: ........................................................ 74 C. Economic Sustainability & Sustainable Development: ............................................................... 77 Meta-Analysis 3: “Exploitative Labor Practices in the Global Palm Oil Industry” .............................. 80 Meta-Analysis 4: “Conflict Palm Oil Case Study: Bumitama Agri LTD - The Banks Behind Bumitama Agri’s Destruction of Rainforests, Peatlands, and Orangutan Habitats” .............................................. 90 Meta-Analysis 5: “Committed Carbon Emissions, Deforestation, and Community Land Conversion From Oil Palm Plantation Expansion in West Kalimantan, Indonesia” ............................................... 97 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 102 6. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 105 References………………………………………………………………………………………………. 1 Introduction Ever since I was a young elementary schooler, I’ve always had a passion for learning about monkeys and apes. At the age of seven, I attended a day camp at the St. Louis Zoo in Missouri where I had grown up for most of my life. Throughout the week, I had the opportunity to learn about many species that live in tropical rainforests, including a number of species of primates in Southeast Asia. Overtime, I became more and more fascinated with the species I was learning about and seeing up close and firsthand. One of my favorite animals has always been the orangutan species. At the end of the week, the zookeepers taught me about a product, known commonly as palm oil, that destroys orangutan’s natural habitats and has led to them becoming extremely endangered. Ever since that day I first learned about this, I’ve never been a consumer of the product throughout the rest of my life. The rest of the campers and I were determined to never consume the product that was