What’s the context?
As it marks 20 years, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil turns its focus to climate change, small growers and Asian markets
- Forest fires, haze in SE Asia helped form RSPO in 2004
- Industry watchdog expanding focus to climate, smallholders
- Asian markets still hesitant to pay for certified oil
JAKARTA – When the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil was set up two decades ago, as the palm oil industry struggled in the wake of major Southeast Asian forest fires that provoked global outrage, reining in tropical forest losses was a top priority.
But today, critics question the palm oil watchdog’s continued relevance as it struggles to manage other fast-rising concerns, from the industry’s climate change impact to its limited benefits for small-scale farmers – and whether price-sensitive Asian buyers can be persuaded to buy greener oil.
Octogenarian MR Chandran – the head of Malaysia’s palm oil growers’ association when he helped create the global standard for sustainability – said reducing emissions and tackling climate change will be crucial in the coming decades.
“Addressing climate change (is something) we have to do,” Chandran, now an advisor to the watchdog, said at the organisation’s 20th anniversary meeting last month.
“Our carbon footprint has to be addressed.”
Palm oil is the world’s most widely used edible oil, found in everything from margarine to soap, but it has faced scrutiny from green activists and consumers, who say its production has provoked rainforest and peatland loss, fires and worker exploitation.
Since its start in 2004, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has grown to more than 5,500 member growers, traders, retailers and advocacy groups.
It has gradually tightened standards to include a ban on felling forests and converting peatlands for plantations, as well as greater protection for labour and land rights.
Cutting down forests has major implications for global goals to curb climate change, as trees absorb about a third of the planet-warming emissions produced worldwide, but release carbon back into the air when they rot or are burned.
The Kuala Lumpur-based RSPO recently completed a five-year review of standards and expects to roll out changes by mid-2024.
No-deforestation rules – which founding father Chandran called the RSPO’s greatest achievement – will not be watered down, said chief executive officer Joseph D’Cruz, better known as JD.
But he also stressed that the industry should look to reduce emissions and tackle climate change.
“We certainly have a lot of work being done to understand and minimise those GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions,” JD told Context.
“But there is a qualitative shift from there to really looking rigorously at carbon through our entire lifestyle and supply chain, and demonstrating that we are really optimising that – there is a lot more that we can do as an industry,” he added.
JD, who was appointed in March last year, said improving soil carbon and cutting methane releases from palm oil mills are some of what’s needed.
MR Chandran, one of the founding fathers of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil at the industry watchdog’s conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, November 21, 2023. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Michael Taylor
Small-scale palm oil farmers left out?
Over the last two decades, pressure from environmentalists and consumers has pushed big companies that produce, trade or buy palm oil to tackle labour abuses on plantations and commit to ending deforestation – with some success.
Deforestation rates in both Malaysia and Indonesia – the world’s top two palm oil producers – have
Read More: Palm oil watchdog adds new targets: climate emissions, small farms