Green Assembly Asia Environment:Climate Change

Self-Description plus Criticism: Edited November 2008)

RSPO is a 262-member organisation spawned in 2002 as a result of informal co-operation among businesses with a vested interest in giving the impression that palm oil is “clean”.

Founder members were: the world’s leading manufacturer of high value-added speciality vegetable fats, AAK; a leading Malaysian oil-palm cultivator called Golden Hope Plantations Berhad (now owned by Sime Darby); Switzerland’s largest supermarket chain and largest employer Migros; the Malaysian Palm Oil Association; the UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s; and, last but not least, one of the world’s biggest global manufacturers of cosmetics, food and homecare products, Unilever, the makers of Wall’s ice cream, Dove soap and Flora margarine.

History of RSPO
These businesses constituted themselves as an organizing committee to organize the first Roundtable meeting and to prepare the foundation for the organizational and governance structure for the formation of the RSPO.

The inaugural meeting of the Roundtable took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 21-22 August 2003 and was attended by 200 participants from 16 countries. The key output from the meeting was the adoption of a statement of intent, a non-legally binding expression of support for the Roundtable process.

By August 2004, only 47 businesses and organisations had even signed the statement of intent, never-mind switched to what the world would come to describe and recognise as sustainable palm oil.

The secretariat is currently based in Kuala Lumpur. There is also an office in Indonesia (Jakarta). Unilever’s director of sustainable agriculture, Jan Kees Vis, is the current chairman of RSPO.

One of the biggest producers of palm oil today is the Singapore-based Wilmar International. Wilmar has a huge land bank in Indonesia waiting to be cleared and planted with palm oil. Wilmar was recently forced to concede defeat in a long-running dispute with Friends of the Earth over its links to the illegal clearance of land for oil palm.

Criticism
After six years of trying to identify itself with sustainable sources of palm oil, the RSPO has achieved next to nothing. It has had to admit that 99% of palm oil – found in a third of all the products on supermarket shelves worldwide – cannot be shown to have been produced sustainably.

Early in 2008, about 200 environment and human rights groups signed an “international declaration against the greenwashing of palm oil by the RSPO”.

One of RSPO’s biggest critics is the international campaigning group, Greenpeace.
In November 2008, they urged RSPO to take immediate action against member companies that are destroying Indonesia’s forests and peatlands.

Greenpeace research showed that RSPO “is little more than greenwash”, a pejorative term that implies lack of honesty or truth.

They gave examples of RSPO’s lack of credibility. “One company receiving RSPO certification - United Plantations, a supplier of Nestlé and Unilever - is involved with deforestation in the vulnerable peatland forests of Kalimantan in Indonesia.”

Greenpeace said Sinar Mas is also involved with deforestation all over Indonesia, including in Kalimantan and Papua, and has aggressive expansion plans for the future, said the statement.

RSPO Aspirations
RSPO is an association created by businesses and organisations carrying out their activities in and around the entire supply chain for palm oil to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil through co-operation within the supply chain and open dialogue with its stakeholders.

In particular, the RSPO has declared its intention to work on the following tasks:

• Research and develop definitions and criteria for the sustainable production and use of palm oil;
• Undertake practical projects designed to facilitate implementation of sustainable best practices;
• Develop solutions to practical problems related to the adoption and verification of best practices for plantation establishment and management, procurement, trade and logistics;
• Acquire financial resources from private and public funds to finance projects under the auspices of the RSPO;
• Communicate the Roundtable’s work to all stakeholders and to a broader public.

Mission
To advance the production, procurement and use of sustainable oil-palm products through the development, implementation and verification of credible global standards and, the engagement of stakeholders along the supply chain

Indonesia Liaison Office
Roundtable 4 in Singapore saw the launch of the RSPO Indonesia Liaison Office (Rilo) in December 2006. The office was established to support the RSPO secretariat in Kuala Lumpur and promote the overall objectives of the RSPO in Indonesia.

A special meeting was held on 21 November 2006 to brief stakeholders on the objectives and modus operandi of Rilo as well as to seek the views and support of the key players in the oil-palm industry in Indonesia, particularly the Indonesian Palm Oil Commission (Ipoc), Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI), WWF Indonesia and Sawit Watch.

Mooted by WWF Indonesia in October, 2004 after Roundtable 2 in Jakarta, Rilo became a reality with the financial support of the Dutch Government through a partnership between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Netherlands.

During the initial six months of operation, the Rilo office was located in the premises of IPOC in Jakarta. The former secretary general of RSPO, Mr Teoh Cheng Hai, and the chairman of IPOC, Dr Rosediana Suharto, were appointed as “advisors” to the Rilo liaison officer.

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