Indonesian Minister and RSPO open to collaboration on joint sustainable palm oil standard

Speaking at the RSPO European roundtable in London, Dr Bayu Krisnamurthi stated the Indonesian government’s intention to work together with RSPO towards a joint sustainable palm oil standard, which would scale up production of certified sustainable palm oil in Indonesia.

Krisnamurthi proposed to convert RSPO into an ‘open source’ standard available also for non-RSPO members, while commenting on the struggle to achieve 100% certified sustainable palm oil.

“We are building a plane while flying it,”​ he said, and emphasised the need to make sustainable palm oil a viable business to all of Indonesia’s palm oil growers and small-holders.

During the conference, Darrel Webber, RSPO Secretary General, also announced the first release, in an accessible format, of maps for all RSPO certified palm oil plantations.

The maps are hosted on the new World Resources Institute’s Global Forest Watch Commodities​ platform.

Transparency​

The RSPO maps show exactly where RSPO certified palm oil is produced and together with other data in the GFW platform will empower palm oil buyers to make better decisions that support responsible sourcing.

“By increasing transparency on where and how palm oil is grown, we want to strengthen the role of RSPO as a benchmark to measure everyone’s performance. GFW’s maps will give greater assurance to European buyers that the CSPO they’re sourcing is produced responsibly,”​ said Webber.

“They will also act as a tool for certified growers to show their commitment and urge customers to support them.”​

By releasing the maps of certified growers, RSPO is answering calls for greater transparency in the supply chain, and increasing trust in its standard to achieve 100% certified sustainable palm oil.

The RSPO London conference inaugurated a series of dialogues for RSPO members to discuss their shared responsibilities in delivering a 100% CSPO market in Europe and reinforce the partnership between growers and palm oil users.

The current estimated annual production capacity of RSPO-certified sustainable palm oil is 9.7 million metric tons, approximately 16% of global crude palm oil.

About 47.85% of the world's current RSPO-certified sustainable palm oil production capacity comes from Indonesia, followed by 43.95% from Malaysia, and the remaining 8.2% from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Brazil, Thailand, Colombia, Cambodia and Ivory Coast.

Palm oil, palm kernel oil, and its derivatives, are used in 70% of cosmetics products.