Palm oil is everywhere: it’s in half of all supermarket products, from frozen pizzas to margarines; used in body creams, soaps, makeup, and candles; included in detergents; and grown for biofuels.

Palm oil plantations cover more than 27 million hectares of the Earth’s surface. Forests and human settlements have been—and continue to be—destroyed to make room for palm oil plantations, which provide virtually no biodiversity. Huge tracts of rainforest are being bulldozed daily in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa to create even more plantations, releasing vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

Palm oil-based biofuels have three times the climate impact of traditional fossil fuels.

So, it’s bad news, right? Many groups have called for boycotts of palm oil altogether. But more than six million people—mostly subsistence farmers—rely on palm oil for their livelihoods. Using alternative fats is potentially more damaging to the climate. And it’s possible to grow palm oil without hurting the environment. Industry and environmental groups have worked together to create growing standards toward a climate- and people-friendly growing practice. NDPE standards require palm oil to be produced without deforestation, peat development, or exploitation.

As of 2020, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification system certified 20% of the world’s palm oil supply.

So with all that in mind, avoid palm oil when possible. To ensure the brands you buy are using only responsibly grown palm oil, check out the World Wildlife Foundation’s palm oil buyers scorecard.