Some activist groups are abandoning the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil—a panel of palm producers, consumer companies, and activist groups that provides sustainability certificates for the industry—over complaints that it has not done enough to correct industry abuses.
“A withdrawal by green groups, long seen as the conscience of the RSPO, could undermine the credibility of the industry body, especially for consumer manufacturing companies under pressure globally to ensure they have a sustainable supply chain,” says Reuters. Some companies like Nestle, Unilever, Mars and Kellogg only use palm oil that has been certified by RSPO as environmentally sustainable.
Aidenvironment, based in Amsterdam, was the latest NGO to withdraw support, claiming that RSPO did little to address the situation when Aidenvironment accused IOI Group of illegally cutting down forests in Indonesia and planting palm oil on peatlands, which are “highly flammable when drained,” says Reuters. Peatland fires have become a major source of pollution in Southeast Asia. RSPO initially suspended IOI’s certificates, but then lifted the suspension four months later.
The loss of yet another NGO on the roundtable “would also create a larger disparity at the RSPO’s already skewed roundtable — NGOs make up less than 2 percent of the RSPO’s 3,080 members worldwide,” says Reuters.
“The RSPO secretariat is more interested in selling certified palm oil than they are in securing the credibility of their sustainability claim,” Eric Wakker, senior consultant at Aidenvironment Asia, said.
For it’s part, RSPO claims that it still has plenty of NGO support. “Overall, the number of NGOs that continue or have started supporting RSPO in the past year is far greater than the number of those who have unfortunately decided to disengage from the process,” said Stefano Savi, the roundtable’s global outreach and engagement director.
One of the cheapest oils to produce, palm oil is found in at half of products on U.S. supermarket shelves, from soap to peanut butter. Countries along the equator, especially Indonesia and Malaysia, have cut down vast forests in order to plant palm plantations. According to Reuters, experts estimate that the total deforested area is equal to the size of Germany.
For more on palm oil, check out FERN’s coverage by Jocelyn Zuckerman, who has written about Indonesian children displaced by World Bank-funded palm oil plantations, and about species endangered by the industry-led deforestation.