Sustainability is a big issue for consumers and companies worldwide. And according to a recent article referencing suppliers at in-cosmetics 2016, the biggest push for more sustainable alternatives to popular ingredients has come from manufacturers and consumers in the U.S. One of the ingredients that has been a focal point in discussions around sustainability is palm oil.
According to the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (rspo.org), issues surrounding this high-yield vegetable oil crop are deforestation, displacement of people from their lands and communities and unfair treatment of workers. Organizations like the RSPO exist to find better ways to produce palm oil. But many companies are looking to replace it all together.
Interest in Palm Alternatives Trends Upward Since 2014
You can research trend data for more palm oil alternatives by starting a free trial of UL’s Industry Analytics.
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Some ingredients trending as palm replacers are derivatives of fig, rice bran, rosemary and aloe. The graph above represents formulator search data aggregated from the Prospector search engine in UL’s Industry Analytics tool. Aloe is the clear winner in Q1 of 2016 with rice bran and rosemary coming in a close second and third and interest in fig trailing further behind.
Another way to drill through the data above: relative volume. The bar graph behind the trend lines illustrates the actual amount of searches for each ingredient keyword. Using this approach, we can see that in Q1 of 2016, there were 2.5 times more searches for “aloe” than for “rice bran,” and about 12 times more searches for “aloe” than for “fig.”
Have you replaced palm in your formulations or are you looking for a more sustainable source? Tell us about your experiences and/or replacement ingredients of choice in the comments below.
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SOAPWART PLANT
I still don’t seem to understand this whole social issue. Palm oil continues to be a high yielding vegetable crop. So won’t the issues of deforestation, displacement of people from their lands and communities and unfair treatment of workers still occur whether the material is palm oil, or any other commodity? The only problem with an other commodity is it won’t be as high yielding as palm oil. I think agriculture overall is the issue in countries like Malaysia where there tends to be no urban planning or development. If these NGO’s were serious about this issue, they should collaborate together and then lobby the Malaysian government for change. Boycotting palm oil is not going to stop the deforestation in these areas, but questioning the agriculture industry in general would be far more challenging than simply boycotting palm oil.