Face palm for palm oil? Not necessarily…
It’s encouraging to see some positive trends to eliminate the damaging practices associated with global palm oil production.
Palm oil is ubiquitous, used in so many of the packaged products we find on shop shelves. Because it has so many applications, and possesses so many features that make it so appealing to the manufacturing process, production operations have burgeoned over the years.
That’s made it one of the key contributors to deforestation – and the consequent environmental damage.
But things are slowly improving: there is now, happily, a much greater focus on the production of palm oil from sustainable sources.
At the same time, smarter thinking is leading to alternatives emerging on the market. To cite just one example: Scotland-based recycling enterprise Revive is working to convert used coffee ground into sustainable alternatives, by extracting and purifying oils from the grounds for use in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and food flavourings.
Together, these trends are a source of encouragement. There’s still a long way to go, but perhaps, in the end, we can hope that oil’s well that ends well.
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