At Natrl Skincare we make choices about ingredients not only for performance and skin safety, but for the wider effects those ingredients have on people, wildlife and the climate. Palm oil is cheap and versatile, which is why it is everywhere — from food to toiletries to cosmetics. But the reality behind much of the global supply chain is troubling: widescale deforestation, loss of irreplaceable habitat, peatland destruction (a major carbon store), and repeated documented human-rights abuses. For those reasons — and because current industry self-regulation and voluntary certification systems leave important gaps — we do not use palm oil in our formulations. This is why….
1. The environmental cost is real and long-term
Large-scale oil-palm expansion has been a principal driver of tropical deforestation across Indonesia, Malaysia and other producing countries. Clearing native forest and draining peatlands for plantations releases huge amounts of carbon, destroys biodiversity (think orangutans, Sumatran tigers, countless plant and insect species), and makes landscapes more vulnerable to fire and drought. Even where progress has been made, the sheer scale of the crop and the pressure to expand create ongoing risks. Recent reviews and investigations emphasise that supply-chain complexity still makes it difficult to trace impacts back to particular plantations or to stop forest clearing at scale.
2. Serious social and human-rights concerns
Investigations by reputable NGOs have repeatedly found forced labour, child labour, exploitative conditions and intimidation on plantations and in supply chains supplying global brands. These are not isolated one-off reports — they point to systemic issues that persist in parts of the industry, particularly where regulatory oversight is weak and where purchasing practices reward low costs over responsible management. For many of us, knowingly buying or using ingredients that are linked to exploitation is simply not ethical.
3. Why “sustainable palm” certification doesn’t guarantee a clean supply chain
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and similar schemes exist to improve practices. But voluntary certification and industry self-regulation have structural weaknesses that mean “sustainable palm” on a label does not always equal deforestation-free, abuse-free supply:
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Supply-chain models allow mixing. The most commonly used models (e.g. Mass-Balance) permit certified and non-certified palm oil to be mixed during processing. That means a product can claim to support certified palm even when some of the oil in it cannot be traced to a deforestation-free origin.
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Audit and enforcement problems. Independent reviewers and watchdogs have raised concerns about inconsistent audit quality, weak follow-up, and assessors with varying competence — all of which undermine confidence that certification rules are being applied effectively.
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Opacity and complexity. Large refineries source from many mills; tracing individual molecules of oil back to a single plantation (“first mile” traceability) is technically and administratively hard. NGOs and researchers repeatedly find gaps in transparency that allow problematic sourcing to persist unnoticed.
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Conflicted incentives. When industry bodies are funded and governed by the same companies they are meant to regulate, there’s an unavoidable conflict of interest that can weaken standards, slow reforms, or allow loopholes to remain open. Independent investigations have repeatedly highlighted this tension.
Because of these factors, “RSPO-certified” or “sustainably sourced” palm oil — while an improvement in some cases — cannot be treated as an ironclad guarantee that no forests were cleared, or that no abuses occurred, especially where purchase volumes, mass-balance accounting and weak enforcement come into play.
4. Laws are tightening — but change takes time
Governments and regulators (for example, through the EU’s deforestation-regulation efforts) are increasing scrutiny and demanding better traceability from companies. That pressure is positive and necessary, but it also demonstrates that voluntary self-regulation was not sufficient on its own — and that industry systems still need stronger independent oversight and legally binding requirements to close loopholes. Until those systems are fully operational and demonstrably effective, reliance on voluntary certification alone remains risky.
5. What this means for our brand and for you
At Natrl Skincare we take a precautionary and ethical stance:
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We don’t use palm oil and palm-derived ingredients because the social and ecological stakes are too high to depend on imperfect voluntary schemes.
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Where an ingredient with similar functional benefits exists that has a substantially lower environmental and social footprint (for example responsibly sourced plant oils with transparent supply chains), we explore and use those alternatives — while still assessing them carefully for their own lifecycle impacts.
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We believe true sustainability requires clear, independently verifiable traceability, strong enforcement and accountability, fair purchasing practices that support smallholders to raise standards (not push them out), and protection for forests and peatlands.
Alternatives and nuance
It’s important to be honest: every agricultural ingredient has an environmental footprint. Some alternatives to palm have their own concerns (land use, yields, carbon intensity), so the choice is not simply “palm or nothing.” What matters to us is transparency, high-integrity sourcing, and supporting agricultural systems that protect ecosystems and people. We also support policies and regulatory changes that raise the floor for the whole sector, so that responsible producers are not undercut by those who cut corners.
Final thought
Using cheap, mass-produced palm oil may lower short-term costs, but when that ingredient is linked to forest loss, climate emissions and human suffering, the “cost” is shifted onto communities, wildlife and the climate. We believe skincare should be gentle on skin and on the planet — and that means choosing ingredients we can stand behind with confidence. For now, the only way to be certain you’re not contributing to deforestation or rights abuses is to avoid palm oil unless traceability and independent verification meet the highest practical standards — which, sadly, are not yet guaranteed by self-regulation alone.
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