This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on November 4, 2024 - November 10, 2024

Two decades ago, visionary leaders in our industry created a global platform for a sustainable palm oil industry. In the years since, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has catalysed a transformation in sustainability standards and practices in global vegetable oils. But global sustainability challenges are still growing, with existential consequences for our natural resources, food systems and the workers and communities at the heart of our production system. Global temperature records are being shattered, with the last nine years being the hottest since record keeping began in 1880. The protection of our remaining forests is now a civilisational imperative. And the livelihood and food security needs of our communities continue to grow.

We are acutely aware of the need to rethink our approaches. The solutions that power our success today will not overcome the problems of tomorrow. Demonstrating sustainability impact in the coming years will require a combination of strong standards, robust verification, and transparent, evidence-based claims. The recent revision of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil Standards is our first step in this direction.

For nearly two decades, the RSPO standards have been the gold standard for responsible, ethical and sustainable palm oil production and trade. Every five years, these standards undergo a rigorous, stakeholder-led review process to maintain the relevance and credibility of Certified Sustainable Palm Oil and associated products in a sustainability-driven global market.

This revision cycle of the RSPO Principles and Criteria (P&C) and the Independent Smallholder (ISH) Standard began in June 2022. It was an exhaustive multi-stakeholder process of review and refinement in response to emerging sustainability challenges. With input from smallholders, community activists, industry practitioners, auditors and external experts, the revision focused on enhancing clarity, auditability, implementability and market relevance, while strengthening our impact on emerging priorities around People, Planet and Prosperity.

On People, a notable addition to the P&C is the introduction of Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD), enabling our members to systematically address and monitor human rights risks in their palm oil supply chain. Aligning with the tone of emerging laws from multiple jurisdictions, the HRDD criterion requires certified oil palm growers to proactively identify, prevent, mitigate and account for potential and actual human rights impacts within their operations and among their direct suppliers.

Several labour and social indicators have also been strengthened, reinforcing alignment with the International Labour Organization (ILO) Indicators of Forced Labour, enhancing empowerment of women, improving workers’ living conditions and strengthening employment contracts. Taken together, these enhancements help ensure that RSPO-certified growers continue to demonstrate their respect for human rights and workers’ welfare, which is now a litmus test for market access worldwide.

On the Planet front, the revised P&C has refined RSPO’s approach to deforestation, leveraging the High Conservation Value-High Carbon Stock (HCV-HCS) approach to protect critical ecosystems and ensure that land is developed responsibly. This balanced approach allows for beneficial economic development while protecting biodiversity, preserving ecosystem integrity and respecting the rights of communities.

Other aspects of good environmental stewardship have been given clearer emphasis, with wider restrictions on the use of carcinogenic, mutagenic and reproductively toxic chemicals, reductions in the emission of significant air pollutants, and the tracking of water consumption and withdrawal to prepare for the looming issue of water scarcity.

This cycle has seen the first revision of the ISH Standard, with a focus on Prosperity. The phased approach for smallholders to achieve certification has been further enhanced to enable better access to certification and new markets, while improving downstream traceability as increasingly required by both markets and regulators. Smallholder inclusion has also been reinforced through requirements for plantations to ensure opportunities for smallholders (especially certified smallholders) to access RSPO-certified mills and the export markets they open up.

We recognise that for our global standards to be effective, they must be practical and implementable, in touch with the realities on the ground as well as regulatory frameworks that vary across palm oil producing regions. This is why, in the spirit of a roundtable, multiple stakeholder consultations were carried out across Africa, Latin America, India and Southeast Asia to ensure that the requirements proposed in the standards can be implemented by small- and large-scale growers worldwide and more effectively audited by certification bodies.

Strengthening our impact on the ground through these improved standards is important but insufficient. A credible sustainability system also needs evidence-based mechanisms to communicate such impacts to end users worldwide. Credible sustainability claims can no longer rely on just a certificate or a logo on a package. Consumers, regulators and decision-makers today demand to see the data that backs up the claims. That is why we are introducing a new global digital architecture designed to validate sustainability performance with factual and verified information.

RSPO’s new system, “prisma” (Palm Resource Information and Sustainability Management), provides the digital infrastructure that will underpin the RSPO certification, trade and traceability system across our global supply chain. prisma underpins the RSPO system by providing the data and evidence that tells the complete story behind sustainable palm oil — from the CO2 emitted and resources used in palm oil production to the rights and working conditions provided to workers, and how critical ecosystems and the rights of local and indigenous communities in our production areas are being respected. The system will enable our members to transmit this rich information across the global supply chain alongside their physical products so that importers, regulators and consumers can see the performance data that underpins the sustainability of RSPO-certified palm products.

As we build the systems and solutions we need to tackle the sustainability challenges of today, we are conscious that further challenges will emerge in the years to come. Our annual flagship roundtable conference, taking place in Bangkok, Thailand, this month, will explore more ways in which the sector must innovate to continue delivering impact for the next 20 years.

Evolved certification standards and systems, developed collaboratively through a global multi-stakeholder network, reinforced by digital infrastructure delivering evidence-based performance — this is how the global partnership of RSPO is scaling up to meet the critical challenges of our times and future-proofing the industry for the next 20 years and beyond.

Joseph D'Cruz is CEO and Yen Hun Sung is director, Standards and Sustainability, at the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. This column is part of a series coordinated by Climate Governance Malaysia, the national chapter of the World Economic Forum’s Climate Governance Initiative. The CGI is an effort to support boards of directors in discharging their duty of care as long-term stewards of the companies they oversee, specifically to ensure that climate risks and opportunities are adequately addressed.

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