Why it matters – a guide to sustainable palm oil

Palm oil is one of those ingredients that appears in an incredible amount of food and personal hygiene products, from chocolate spread to tortilla crisps.

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The reason the oil is so well liked by manufacturers it is very cheap, primarily because palm trees grow very fast in tropical countries so it's easy to mass produce and is a very versatile component.

The disadvantage however is that many pristine and ecologically-rich rainforests have been cut down and lost forever for these plantations, negatively impacting the communities and wild life that live there.

This is obviously bad for climate change, local people and nature as forests store carbon and are home to a wealth of animal and plant species.

Greenpeace produced an impactful film about orangutans one Christmas, voiced by Emma Thompson called there’s a Rang-tan in my bedroom to highlight these issues