Seventeen climate summits ago, one of the world’s first sustainability efforts in global food production was set up to stop palm oil plantations from destroying the rainforest. Yet more than 80% of the market remains untouched by the effort because no one wants to pay for it. About one-fifth of the palm oil produced globally in 2020 was certified by organizations such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, but buyers only bought half of it. The rest, audited and independently verified, was sold without the sustainability premium to food companies and other purchasers as uncertified oil, according to Carl Bek-Nielsen, chief executive director of United Plantations Bhd., the first big grower to gain the certification in 2008. “It has always been the understanding and sort of verbal promise that if growers produce certified sustainable palm oil under the RSPO, there will be a market for it,” Bek-Nielsen said. […]