Palm oil 'Smart Thinking'

The article sub-titled 'smart thinking' in an Asian business magazine, starts off with the statement:  'If you were to ask the CEO of one of Malaysia's largest palm oil companies (IOI)  , what the main goal of the business is, the answer would be simple:  International growth.  Only 10% of IOI's output is for domestic consumers.  Over 700,000 metric tonnes of palm oil goes overseas to meet the unquenchable international market's thirst for cheap vegetable oil.  You probably eat it every day if you buy  processed foods.  It ain't good for you. Indonesia dominates the palm oil market in Asia. 

From beautiful rainforests

to cutting down the rainforest

to planting palm oil plantations

to palm oil refineries

to a supermarket near you.

What's this gotta do with Community Microgrids in Bali?  When the natural energy resources contained within a rain forest, within a rice field, within a working, diverse eco-system is replaced by a monoculture for faraway consumption, then any hope of using locally produced energy will be impossible.  And worse, the humus/soil will be so depleted that even simple subsistence farming won't be possible.

It's all in the supply chain.  It all starts somewhere.  As rich flora gets bulldozed down, as western style development encroaches, as we continue to consume and demand products based on vegetable oil, we are the causation of these plantations.  Like a drug addict being supplied by a cartel...  without the addict there would be no cartel.  Without our appetite for palm-oil based products, there would be no continuous rain forest destruction.

So take a look at the cereal box, at those cookies, at those snack bags.. if it says 'vegetable oil' on the ingredient label anywhere - it's palm oil derived. Plain and simple.

if you wanna get sustainable Palm Oil check out  www.rspo.org

Here's the profile of one palm oil company in Malaysia:

IOI Group's formation years were associated with real estate when it forayed into property development in 1982 followed by Oil Palm plantations in 1985.

Today, IOI Group is internationally known as a leading global integrated palm oil player with operations stretching the entire palm value chain from seedlings to plantations to crop oil extraction to diverse value-added manufacturing across major continents - serving global markets in more than 65 countries. Close to its home-base in Malaysia, the Group is also prominently known as one of the leading property developer with significant investment holdings of prime real-estates.
IOI Group employs more than 30,000 personnel of more than 23 different nationalities in 15 countries.