A: At Love Home and Planet, we believe that products formulated using renewable, plant-based ingredients are better for people and for the planet. This includes our use of palm oil, which has unique properties that make it well-suited for many of our products. Additionally, palm oil is also in fact the most land-efficient vegetable oil available. Oil palms produce more oil per hectare of land than any other oil-producing crop. For example, to get the same amount of oil from soybeans, you would need seven times more farmland . That means more agricultural land devoted to non-food crops, as well as more forests coming under threat. In addition, the production of oil palm requires less energy, as well as fewer fertilizers and pesticides. It’s important to also not forget the economic benefit the industry has had on the millions of smallholder farmers and economies of producing countries. For example, in Indonesia and Malaysia, 4.5 million people rely on the palm oil industry for their livelihood. All of our suppliers need to adhere to our Sustainable Palm Oil Sourcing Policy, which was updated in 2016 with stronger commitments to human rights and inclusion of smallholder farmers amongst other requirements. We source Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) Certified Sustainable Palm Oil produced according to the principles and criteria established by the RSPO. This verifies that valuable tropical forests were not cleared, and social and environmental safeguards were met during the oil’s harvest and production.
See stats for ‘land use’: http://www.palmoilresearch.org/statistics.html