The palm oil paradox: When green turns grey
11/11/2025 (The Star Online) - IN the lofty parlance of “sustainability”, the fruit of the oil palm still finds itself cast as villain.
Yet when the very gatekeepers of the industry point out that some self-proclaimed champions of the cause are quietly declaring “No Palm Oil” while sitting at the same table as certified sustainable palm oil stakeholders, the contradictions become impossible to ignore.
As Malaysian Palm Oil Board chairman and SD Guthrie Bhd managing director Datuk Mohamad Helmy Othman Basha reminded delegates at the recent Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) RT2025, “There are brands that sit with us at the same table, claim to believe in sustainable palm oil, yet proudly sell products that say ‘No Palm Oil’.”
What message does that send?
On one hand, these companies endorse RSPO principles and parade sustainability credentials; on the other, they market moral panic in a jar.
The result is a mixed signal that turns sustainability from reform into farce – shifting the narrative from inclusion and improvement, to exclusion and fear.
Mohamad Helmy’s call for honesty, accountability and trust cut through the polite noise.
Partnerships, he said, must be built not on slogans but sincerity – “words matched by deeds, membership matched by advocacy.”
If sustainability is a shared table, then those who claim to support Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO) must also defend it – consistently, publicly and without apology. Because selective virtue, as he reminded, is not virtue at all.
Marketing mirage: When green becomes a gimmick
Sustainability, once the vocabulary of reform, has become the marketing garnish of the decade.
For some brands, it’s like parsley on a dinner plate – sprinkled for show, never eaten.
When a shampoo bottle or biscuit packet boasts “No Palm Oil”, what it really says is “no understanding”.
This is the hypocrisy Mohamad Helmy called out – companies that preach sustainability by day and profit from palm-free posturing by night.
These contradictions don’t inspire confidence; they insult intelligence.
If certified palm oil earns no reward in the marketplace, why should producers bear the cost of doing better? Partnership is not a spectator sport.
Stakeholder members cannot claim to be partners in action if one hand stays “clean” by keeping it off palm oil altogether.
Sustainability, after all, isn’t a producer’s penance – it’s a shared responsibility, from plantation to product shelf.
Certified palm oil isn’t just about how it’s grown, but how it’s used, valued and defended across the entire chain.
And that, it seems, remains the big missing jigsaw piece in the CSPO puzzle: plenty of chatter about production, far less appetite to purchase or promote.
But everyone wants a voice in the conversation – just not a hand in the checkout line.
The irony? This brand of “green theatre” often enlarges the world’s footprint. Substitute oils like soybean, sunflower or rapeseed demand far more land per litre of oil.
Replacing palm oil globally would mean clearing millions more hectares – precisely what sustainability claims to prevent. In the pursuit of moral purity, practical sense has been the first casualty.
What’s needed is not another sermon of guilt, but genuine education.
Certified palm oil, verified through credible standards such as Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO), Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) and RSPO, should be celebrated, not shunned.
The label “No Palm Oil” may sell soap – but it cleans no conscience.
Western buffet syndrome: Guilt served cold
There’s irony – almost poetic – in watching nations that once logged their landscapes to prosperity now sermonise to the tropics about tree cover.
As an earlier piece in The Star’s “Green Absolution” quipped, it’s like the guest who emptied the buffet at lunch, then lectures the host on portion control at dinner – full stomach, holier tone.
This is the business of guilt, not growth. Europe’s deforestation regulation (EUDR), conceived in Brussels boardrooms, demands GPS-level traceability from smallholders but offers little help to those expected to comply.
It criminalises complexity while romanticising compliance.
Sustainability is vital, yes – but so is fairness. For too long, the global debate has been framed by moral distance: tropical farmers pay the carbon price for northern consumption.
The EUDR risks creating a two-tier system – sustainable enough for the south to produce, never pure enough for the north to approve.
Mohamad Helmy reminded the RSPO forum that facts must matter more than feelings. Deforestation in Malaysia has dropped by over 60% in the past decade, verified by the World Resources Institute.
Yet perception lags progress. “If every hectare of oil palm were returned to forest,” he noted, “the world would be worse off.” Less efficient crops would spread, emissions would rise, and millions of smallholders would fall behind.
Selective morality, he implied, is not sustainability – it’s self-absolution dressed as virtue.
Two languages of sustainability: Field vs finance
If the first hypocrisy lies in marketing, the second lies in language. The palm oil industry today speaks in two dialects – and neither seems fluent in the other.
The planter’s world is measured in bunch weight, rainfall, and harvest intervals.
The investor’s world runs on environmental, social, and governance scores, carbon audits and glossy reports. Both talk about yield – but one means per ha, the other per share.
Between them lies a gulf of comprehension wide enough to drive a fresh fruit bunch truck through.
As Mohamad Helmy reminded his audience, transformation demands partnership in action, not perfection on paper.
Growers have delivered traceability, no deforestation, no peat, no exploitation compliance and transparency.
Now it’s time for buyers and financiers to do the heavy lifting – pay fair value, share responsibility and stop treating sustainability as a corporate costume change.
Meanwhile, the realities on the ground remain stubborn: ageing palms, thinning labour and mechanisation that still crawls where it should sprint.
How can a crop that feeds the world and fills national coffers still depend so heavily on muscle and harvesting poles?
Sustainability cannot stop at certification; it must extend to continuity, with continuous improvements – ensuring that the next generation sees oil palm as a science, not a sentence.
Until the two languages – field and finance – truly converse, sustainability will remain a Tower of Babel: tall, costly and tone-deaf.
From competition to cohesion: The case for producer solidarity
Here lies the heart of the matter. If the critics are united, why aren’t the producers?
Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Papua New Guinea and other producers share more than geography - they share destiny. These nations feed the world, yet are too often fed to the wolves of perception.
Despite real progress, the palm oil story remains fragmented, lost in translation and tone.
What the industry needs now is not more noise, but clarity in communication - one coherent message, one confident voice, and one shared vision that speaks for all who grow beneath the same tropical sun.
What the moment demands is not fragmentation, but cohesion. Producer nations must speak with one credible, confident, collective voice. Through the Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries (CPOPC) and beyond, palm oil producers must move from defensive diplomacy to proactive agenda-setting.
Shared research, harmonised certification, and unified messaging can reset the conversation.
Imagine MSPO, ISPO and TAPSO aligned under mutual recognition - a One Tropic Standard grounded in science, fairness and transparency. That vision would speak louder than a thousand rebuttals.
At its core, the sustainability debate is not about oil - it’s about identity. Palm oil stands for the Global South’s right to progress with purpose - to grow responsibly, not apologetically.
True sustainability is not submission to imported virtue, but stewardship of what we hold in trust: our land, our labour and our legacy. Not shame, but shared strength. Not guilt, but growth and pride.
The palm does not shout; it endures. Its oil feeds the world, its fronds shade generations, and its roots hold the soil together. Perhaps it’s time its producers did the same - stand taller, grow together, and let truth take root.
One voice, one vision
Palm oil’s story is too important to be told by its critics alone. It is time for producers, policymakers and professionals to reclaim the narrative - grounded not in guilt, but in growth, grounded not in rhetoric, but in reason.
Yes, sustainability matters - deeply. Wrongdoers must be called out, and black sheep held accountable. But let us not condemn the entire herd with a single brushstroke.
For every misstep, there are countless planters, scientists, and smallholders who have worked quietly and honourably to make this industry better, cleaner and fairer.
As Mohamad Helmy reminded his peers, “What defines a responsible industry is not perfection - it is progress.”
The palm oil sector has spent decades refining its practices; now it must refine its unity.
Only when the producers of this golden crop stand shoulder to shoulder - grounded in science, strengthened by solidarity, and guided by shared humanity - will the world finally hear not the noise of accusation, but the enduring truth of the land.
The world loves to talk about saving the planet - just not when the solution comes wrapped in a palm frond.
Joseph Tek Choon Yee has over 30 years experience in the plantation industry, with a strong background in oil palm research and development, C-suite leadership and industry advocacy. The views expressed here are the writer’s own