Secretary general of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) Darrel Webber on Thursday told the global palm oil industry that it was more important for them to take immediate steps to address the sector’s sustainability, rather than wait for a “perfect solution” that would appease all critics.
Delivering the closing address at the 12th annual Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil conference (RT12), Webber said that many good ideas such as studies to define carbon-rich forest areas and monitor changes in forest cover had been shared, and palm oil players must not waste time in implementing these ideas.
Webber cited the recent deal signed by the United States and China to reduce their emissions as an example that was an important step forward despite comments from some quarters that it would not be enough to mitigate climate change.
A similar breakthrough should be pursued to improve the effectiveness and reach of RSPO’s certification scheme, Webber told the audience of 800 guests at the Shangri-La hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
RSPO’s scheme, which is the main industry standard for sustainable palm oil, outline principles and critera that are decided and reviewed every five years by a committee comprised of RSPO members. These are requirements that palm oil growers must fufill in order to qualify as producers of Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO).
Members typically include palm oil growers, processors, consumer product companies, and environmental non-government organisations (NGOs). The most recent edition was finalised last April.
Green groups and industry members at the conference also discussed ways to address the scheme’s absence of an absolute ban on converting forests or peatland to plantations, rules for members to report on their greenhouse gas emissions, and a mechanism by which RSPO-certified palm oil in the market can be traced back to its plantation.
Traceability for a more sustainable palm oil supply chain
Experts say identifying the plantation or mill that palm oil comes from is a process complicated by the several steps between the point of harvest of palm fruit and its use in end-products.
Palm oil from suppliers who practice deforestation can be mixed with certified palm oil at any stage, which means that RSPO-certified palm oil might not be fully sustainable. The only way to avoid this is for each stakeholder to follow the industry practice of segregation, which means that certified sustainable palm oil should be grown, milled, and processed separately from non-certified oil.
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RSPO should facilitate the introduction of additional criteria to its standards. The discussions at this conference make it clear that the stakeholders are asking for it.
Ben Vreeburg, sustainability director, IOI Loders Croklaan
RSPO currently certifies segregated palm oil, oil that is mixed with conventional palm oil, allows companies to claim they use sustainable palm oil by purchasing ‘GreenPalm’ certificates. These certificates can be purchased by manufacturers who cannot access segregated palm oil, and proceeds from their sales are passed to RSPO-certified growers.
While groups such as Greenpeace say that this variety of certification options does not assure that palm oil carrying the RSPO certification is truly deforestation-free, some companies have made voluntary commitments to source palm oil from certified sustainable and traceable sources.
One of the world’s largest buyers of the commodity, Unilever, has pledged that all palm oil bought by the company, will come from traceable and certified sources by 2020.
Speaking at a panel session on traceability at RT12, Unilever’s global sustainable sourcing director Cherie Tan shared that to date, 58 per cent of the company’s supply is traceable, and all of the palm oil used by their food business in Europe will be traceable to certified plantations by the end of the year.
The company’s efforts to reach their goal of procuring only traceable palm oil is challenging due to the “complex and opaque” supply chain, said Tan. She added that engaging smallholders on palm oil is critical to achieving traceability back to plantations.
However, the panel of experts emphasised that traceability was not a substitute for sustainability – it was simply a means for companies to identify the stakeholders it needed to work with to improve operations.
Ben Vreeburg, sustainability director of edible fats firm IOI Loders Croklaan, said that integrating traceability into the RSPO standards was important to driving the industry’s sustainability.
“RSPO should facilitate the introduction of additional criteria to its standards. The discussions at this conference make it clear that the stakeholders are asking for it,” he said, adding that doing so would ensure that RSPO stays relevant to the industry rather than being overshadowed by companies making unilateral commitments that go beyond RSPO requirements.
Marcello Britto, commercial and sustainability director of Brazil’s largest palm oil producer Agropalma, pointed out that more CSPO was currently being produced than sold. Companies further down the supply chain had to commit to paying for the more expensive certified sustainable oil, he said.
The Zoological Society of London (ZSL), a conservation charity, also launched a new initaitive on the sidelines of the conference that aimed to raise the industry’s level of transparency. ZSL’s free online resource, called the Sustainable Palm Oil Transparency Toolkit, will allow investors and stakeholders to monitor oil palm growers on the sustainability of their operations
As RSPO’s secretary general Darrel Webber urged members to collectively work on addressing the various shortcomings identified by observers, he also acknowledged that RSPO needs to keep pace with a market where companies are increasingly committing to more stringent sustainability measures than what RSPO requires. Alternate palm oil certification schemes have also been initiated by the Indonesian and Malaysian governments.
Webber noted that he saw these schemes as “complementary” to the RSPO’s goals, and that the organisation will work on strengthening its own processes and deepening its collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme, governments and NGOs to promote sustainable palm oil. This will be necessary to engage the 82 per cent of palm oil growers who are not yet RSPO certified, he noted.
“Working with these partners helps RSPO innovate ways to improve our certification scheme and stay relevant,” he said.
