The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) grouping this week will release its inaugural annual 2011 RSPO Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO) Growth Interpretation Narrative (2011 GIN) report, which contains critical guidelines on the palm oil fraternity’s sensitivity and influence towards sustainability since the RSPO started the certification of CSPO in 2008.
RSPO secretary-general Darrel Webber said the comprehensive 2011 GIN interprets data and statistics on CSPO as well as implications on realisation, challenges, trends and future bearings that hopefully could serve to guide actions and decisions by those involved in the supply chain of the palm oil industry.
The narrative would also serve as a response to the detractors of the RSPO, which doubts the transformative change RSPO was aiming at to advance the cause of sustainable palm oil globally, he told StarBiz in an interview recently.
To date, the RSPO has close to 800 members in multi-stakeholder groups from banks and investors, consumer goods manufacturers, environmental NGOs, oil palm growers, palm oil processors and traders, retailers, social or development-NGOs, as well as affliate and associate members.
For this year, Webber said the RSPO would focus on three strategic pillars encompassing the need to increase the CSPO uptake in the major consuming markets, continuing the certification momentum and to enhance the RSPO’s international standards for certification.
“We are now actively penetrating new markets by driving memberships in India and China. The grouping is also increasing membership throughout the supply chain by focusing on processors, traders, consumer goods manufacturers and retailers as well as tracking the pledges on CSPO by existing members,” added Webber.
Since its inception in 2008 to end-2011, about 9.1 million tonnes of CSPO had been supplied but 4.1 million tonnes were sold, resulting in a market uptake of 45 per cent. As for certified sustainable palm kernel (CSPK), about 2.1 million tonnes had been supplied and 0.8 million tonnes or 44 per cent were bought. Webber noted that over time, there had been good increase in market uptake, with CSPO rising 25 per cent in 2009, 46 per cent in 2010 and 52 per cent in 2011 respectively.
Last year also saw CSPK demand approaching 100 per cent in one month and exceeded 100 per cent in December, thus helping to mop up a few certificates from the growing stockpile of the unused 1.3 million tonnes for CSPK and five million tonnes for CSPO.
He said: “Increased demand last year at GreenPalm is aided by higher uptake by established buyers like Unilever, Nestle, Kellogg and new entrants such as Ikea Supply AG and Conagra Foods Ltd.”
GreenPalm is a certificate trading programme whereby consumers can make a positive contribution to the production of CSPO and CSPK when buying a product which bears the GreenPalm logo. Another significant initiative towards increasing the CSPO and CSPK uptakes is the RSPO Trademark on consumer goods packaging launched in the middle of last year. Currently, about 40 licensees have been approved for consumer goods companies, processors and traders and growers.
Commenting on certification, Webber said RSPO would continue its momentum in large palm oil producing nations while concurrently guiding and accelerating certifications in new frontiers such as Thailand, Africa and South America.
“We will do this through engagement and outreach within our multistakeholder structure, various governments, member companies, associations as well as facilitate funding and capacity building mechanisms for smallholders and new frontiers,” he added.
Malaysia for example, is the largest grower of RSPO certified products. To date, it has 72 mills certified, a production area of 534,861 ha, 2.69 million tonnes and 657,759 tonnes of CSPO and CSPK respectively. Currently, about 14 per cent of Malaysia’s total palm oil output is RSPO certified.
On the need for RSPO to enhance its international standards for certification, Webber said the group would undertake an inaugural view of the RSPO Principles and Criteria this year via an inclusive process across stakeholder groups, such as addressing growing concerns on greenhouse gas emissions.
