Why no palm oil in Good Karma Products Incorporated products?

Palm oil production is destroying the rain forests of Indonesia and other South East Asian countries. It is ravaging the population of some of the rarest creatures on earth including the orangutan. The slash and burn technique is used to clear some of the most diverse and rich bio-spheres on the plant. The smoke plumes from these massive fires are so large that they smother Singapore in a choking haze of the last remains of a once ancient and beautiful forest. 

This wholesale destruction of some of our last remaining rain forest is driven by the seemingly unending demand from developed countries for palm oil. Palm oil is used in countless products but a common use is in soaps and candles. We do not use palm oil because we want to reduce demand and increase awareness about palm oil. One day we would like to be able to offer palm oil products but until there are major changes in the industry we will refrain from using palm oil in our products. 

Here are some of the sobering and saddening facts about palm oil production: 

• Approximately 85 percent of palm oil is grown in the tropical countries of Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea (PNG) on industrial plantations
• Palm oil imports to the U.S. have jumped 485% in the last decade
• The Indonesian government has announced plans to convert approximately 18 million more hectares of rain forests, an area the size of Missouri, into palm oil plantations by 2020.
• Deforestation causes eighty percent of Indonesia’s CO₂ emissions, making the tropical nation the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Above information from: (http://www.ran.org/palm_oil_fact_sheet) 

• Up to 300 football fields of forest are cleared every HOUR to make room for palm plantations

• In the past 10 years, the orangutan population has decreased by 50 percent as the result of habitat loss from forest clearing for palm plantations

• There are only 6,300 Sumatran orangutans left. It is estimated that 1,000 orangutans are killed a year, a major factor in these deaths being forest clearing for palm production. In 2006, at least 1,500 orangutans were clubbed to death by palm workers

Above information from (http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/top-10-facts-you-need-to-know-about-palm-oil/)

The above information I have found to be only the tip of the iceberg in regards to the devastation caused by using palm oil in products. Due to the above we here at Good Karma Products Incorporated refrain from using palm oil for soaps or candles. Please help us in this cause and stop using products with palm oil whenever possible.