Maybe you've heard of palm oil, maybe you have no idea what it is, but the common household ingredient plays a huge role in the state of our environment. Here are 9 things you need to know right now:

1) Oil palm plantations are grown in tropical rain forests

Palm oil and palm kernel oil are produced from the oil palm, a plant that is endemic to Africa but now is predominantly grown in the tropical rain forested areas of Indonesia and Malaysia. In order for palm oil plantations to be made, tropical rain forests are cleared and oil palms are grown on the deforested land. The palm oil industry dominates the economy of these countries, and as demand grows, tropical rain forests in Africa and Latin America are at increased risk of deforestation and conversion to plantations.

2) It is in 40-50% of items in the supermarket

Just check the label for candy, soda, cereal, chocolate, granola bars, chips, crackers, butter, toothpaste, nail polish, shampoo, and so many more products, and you will see palm oil or palm kernel oil. Some companies like Unilever are committed to making sure their products are "certified sustainable palm oil", which is important because of how many of their products use palm oil, and how big of an impact it has on the environment.

3) Demand is increasing

Palm oil is high in saturated fats, has a long shelf life, and is solid at room temperature, making it great cooking oil and widely used in processed foods. It is also being used increasingly as feedstock for biofuel, which is being advertised as "green" energy. As that gains popularity, production will increase.

4) It has a huge impact on global warming.

In order for new plantations to be made, tropical rain forests must be cleared. Much of this clearing comes through fires, which release a ton of carbon into the environment. The production process produces wastewater that gets dumped into local lakes, causing water pollution, and the smog produced by a combination of CO2-producing forest fires and methane-producing factories contributes to air pollution.

5) It is killing off endangered species

The tropical rain forests of Indonesia and Malaysia are home to some of the greatest biodiversity in the world, including the Sumatran and Borneo Orangutans, the Sumatran Tiger, the Sun Bear, the Sumatran Rhino, and the Asian Elephant. As their habitats are destroyed, these animals are either killed in the deforestation process, die due to lack of resources, or are straight-out murdered when they enter towns in search of habitat. In the next decade, if nothing is done to make palm oil more sustainable, many of these species will go extinct.

6) "Certified sustainable" palm oil has a catch

There is a international certification body for the production of palm oil called the RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) composed of a thousand producers, manufacturers, stockholders, and retailers of palm oil. They have made a commitment to being more environmentally sustainable, but the terms of the agreements are very vague and are biased, because all of the members want palm oil to be cheap and traded freely.

7) Scientists are developing alternatives

A company called Solazyme in England has developed an algal oil that is very similar to palm oil, but requires multiple times less land to produce. It can also grow in more temperate climates, which means it doesn't require biodiversity-rich tropical soils to grow. Right now, this is a quite expensive alternative, but with time and increased popularity, it could become a sustainable substitute for palm oil.

8) Boycotting isn't the answer

As dangerous as overproduction of palm oil can be on the environment, palm oil is a lot more efficient than other vegetable oils. On one hectare of land, you can produce 10 times more palm oil than any other oil. If everyone boycotted palm oil (even though that would be nearly impossible because of how prevalent it is), companies would begin to switch to other, less efficient oils and take over even more land.

9) We can do something about it

By being responsible consumers, we can choose to buy sustainable palm oil products. While palm oil producers in southeast Asia ultimately have control over how sustainable they choose to be, they will do what popular consumer demand tells them to do. The first step? Spreading awareness.