Beginning August 2010, we started a collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to assess progress amongst our Indonesian palm oil suppliers to implement the principles and criteria established by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The collaboration builds on our responsible palm production policies on our own plantations and will allow us to work with the industry and the Indonesian government to encourage the adoption of more sustainable production practices.

The assessment will focus on key areas including land permitting, environmental and social practices. We will then work with suppliers to adopt and implement solutions to improve sustainable palm production practices.

WWF assessment

WWF has extensive experience with global companies and supply chains in influencing change in the way global commodities are produced, processed and consumed. WWF will supervise the assessment process including the design and selection of local environmental experts for fieldwork and in-person visits to plantations.

The assessment will prioritize estates from our key suppliers with the highest biodiversity concerns.  This is a long-term initiative with WWF to work with our suppliers to help find ways to implement more sustainable production practices and will support producers to meet the rising demand for certified sustainable palm oil.

RSPO certification

We believe palm oil should be produced sustainably and we fully support the RSPO process. Cargill wants to play a leading role in working towards sustainable palm oil supply and use through the RSPO, and through our own actions. As such we have committed that the palm oil products supplied to our customers (excluding palm kernel oil products) in Europe, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand will be RSPO certified and/or originated from smallholder growers by 2015. This commitment will be extended across all our oil and trading businesses to cover 100 percent of our palm oil products and all customers worldwide – including China and India – by 2020.

We are encouraging our suppliers to join the RSPO and attain RSPO certification. It is our hope that all oil palm plantations become RSPO certified.

Our progress

We have made significant progress on bringing certified sustainable palm oil to our customers’ supply chains:

• Our European, Malaysian and United States refineries have received RSPO supply chain certification for the mass balance supply chain and for a segregated supply chain.
• Our oil palm plantation PT Hindoli in Sumatra, Indonesia has received RSPO certification and smallholders at this plantation have became the first smallholder scheme globally to be certified under the RSPO’s Smallholder Principles & Criteria.
• We are currently working towards RSPO certification for our other palm plantation, Harapan Sawit Lestari.

Our policies

We have our own policies in place for responsible palm production on our own plantations including commitments to not plant on high conservation value forests (HCVF); to not develop new plantations on deep peat land or land that would threaten biodiversity; and a strict no-burn policy for land preparation.