Palm Oil and Biofuels

The growing interest of biofuels (as expressed by current EU policy) creates opportunities to move the sustainability agenda on palm oil further and to strengthen RSPO

avoid the risks of parallel energy and non energy palm oil markets with different standards
by using RSPO P&C as the basis for using palm oil in European biofuel
and adding clear CO₂ balance criteria to RSPO P&C.

» download short paper on this issue

palm oil

initiative

In 2001, Andrea Ries of WWF Switzerland, with whom I worked on cotton, forestry and organisation issues, asked me to develop ideas for a roundtable on sustainable palm oil. Palm oil was in WWF's focus because of its link to deforestation. I proposed a model with major responsibility for business players. A first meeting was held in London in September 2002, after I had personally approached different European retailers, processors, bankers and others.
» download minutes

Stopping Forest Conversion?

We may conclude that RSPO is effective in setting minimum standards for growing palm oil, i.e. regulating plantation management. For saving the forest, however, RSPO is not the right instrument, since it does not and cannot address the central issues:

land-use planning, a government responsibility
payments for opportunity costs of not using the forest

For protection of biodiversity, another procedure should have been chosen:

identifying the forests that need protection
identifying the oil palm developments and other economic activities that should be stopped
identifying alternative land that can be used
calculating the opportunity costs of moving the planned activities to alternative (e.g. deteriorated) land
creating a public/private fund for paying the opportunity costs.

creating critical mass

The participants of the London meeting supported a roundtable on sustainable palm oil on one clear condition: palm oil growers should be involved. WWF and Unilever, with my support, took the lead to set up an Organising Committee. MPOA, the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, joined the Committee and secured its critical mass and its acceptance by oil palm growers.

the first roundtable

The Inaugural Roundtable Meeting was held in Kuala Lumpur, August 2003. Our bureau organised the meeting in close cooperation with MPOA. Caroline de Bruin (our bureau) and Joseph Tek (MPOA) worked hard to make the first roundtable a great success. There were over 200 delegates from industry and interest groups from 16 countries around the world. There was consensus among participants that a common code of conduct and practice has to be developed, agreed upon and implemented. A Statement of Intent was discussed. I assisted Mr. Chandran (MPOA) in facilitating the roundtable meetings.
» more information

RSPO is developing well

I was not involved in organising the subsequent Roundtables, which took place in Jakarta and Singapore. For more information, see www.rspo.org. See also New certification standards ensure sustainable palm oil.

So far, the Roundtable is a great success. It was established in a short period of time. At the 3rd Roundtable Meeting (RT3) on Sustainable Palm Oil,in November 2005r, the Principles & Criteria (P&C) for Sustainable Palm Oil Production were adopted by RSPO. Programmes were initiated to provide a framework for verification of the P&C, etc

THIS PAGE HAS NOT BEEN UPDATED WITH DEVELOPMENTS AFTER 2005