--With renewed COP26 commitments, Airbus, CottonConnect, Earthworm Foundation, 
Tropical Forest Alliance and World Resources Institute called for collaborative 
action across supply chains during RSPO's 2021 roundtable conference to achieve 
positive impact for people and planet.

On 16 November, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) hosted the 2021 
Virtual Roundtable Conference on the theme of "Climate Resilience: Assuring the 
Future of Sustainable Palm Oil". The panel brought together leading voices 
across the agricultural commodities sector to exchange views on some of the 
thorniest issues in the industry - from climate change to accessible 
technological innovation to economic inclusion. 

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1695674/RT2021.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1160778/RSPO_Logo.jpg 

Panellists opened with their views on COP26, highlighting that forests and land 
use have never been more prominent during the summit where over 100 world 
leaders pledged to end and reverse deforestation by 2030. Directly impacting 
commodities like palm oil - often seen as a driver of deforestation and 
greenhouse gas emissions - COP26 underscored the vital need for solutions like 
RSPO and other voluntary initiatives. 

Protecting human rights and labour rights
The first deep dive addressed the complex issue of human rights and labour 
rights, where panellists emphasised that human rights and labour rights' 
violations cannot be separated from environmental issues, and they remain some 
of the toughest challenges facing agri-commodity industries. 

Panellists highlighted the importance of standards, such as RSPO's, "as 
guidance for a rights-based approach across supply chains," Janhavi Naidu from 
the Earthworm Foundation said. "We focus on translating the agenda, visions and 
expectations set by RSPO and similar standards into resources and actionable 
solutions. This is because actors require guidance, time and investment to be 
able to scale just labour practices." 

Echoing this sentiment, Alison Ward from CottonConnect added, "Ensuring just 
treatment of workers requires strong investment in each step of the supply 
chain, local intervention and engagement. In the textile sector, this means 
brands and companies meeting farmers, ginners and spinners to understand their 
concerns and investing adequate resources to address them." She shared examples 
of building trust in cotton growing communities in India and Pakistan to ensure 
that their health and safety needs are met, inspired by similar work in the 
palm oil sector.  

Appropriate uses of technology
Panellists also explored the importance of leveraging innovation and 
technologies to address climate challenges. Technology can help provide greater 
transparency and traceability in the palm oil supply chain and enable 
businesses to uphold their sustainability commitments. RSPO has been at the 
forefront of developing solutions to strengthen the credibility of its 
certification scheme. 

Rod Taylor from the World Resources Institute (WRI) cited one example, GeoRSPO, 
which integrates RSPO concession maps with the Global Forest Watch platform. He 
explained "Global Forest Watch feeds directly into GeoRSPO by combining 
satellite imagery and cloud computing to show land use change in a 
user-friendly manner... it helps companies manage deforestation risk in their 
supply chain and integrate risk management and reporting into a single 
system".  

Wendy Carrara from Airbus elaborated, "We have invested 20 years of research 
and development on a verification tool that promotes traceability to 
plantations, raises alerts on deforestation and correlates it with supply chain 
data. Altogether, this ensures the responsible sourcing of palm oil. Satellite 
images are analysed using biophysical parameters to create a base map against 
which monitoring can be done at scale and with local precision". 

Supporting rural livelihoods
The final deep dive discussion covered how achieving climate resilience through 
certification like RSPO not only delivers benefits for the planet, but for 
people too. Achieving climate resilience in the sustainable palm oil sector is 
not merely an ecological imperative - it can also generate social empowerment 
by strengthening workforce capacity, creating jobs and fostering economic 
development. 

Justin Adams from the Tropical Forest Alliance advocated for integrating 
livelihoods into climate action: "There is a clear recognition of the 
importance of the social dimension in achieving environmental goals; climate 
goals are central but just one dimension to optimise. We need ecopreneurs in 
the landscape to drive real change". Rod continued by highlighting that the big 
picture solution is to optimise existing resources like land through 
sustainable practices, stabilise existing resources, and make farming more 
lucrative, topped with incentives to reward good stewardship.

Despite the challenges ahead, the past few years have seen closer integration 
of environmental and social goals - key to securing a sustainable and resilient 
future across the palm oil sector. Panellists closed on an optimistic note by 
saying that organisations like RSPO are critical because they bring communities 
together to solve problems. "It goes beyond simply increasing the volume of 
Certified Sustainable Palm Oil and towards creating a sustainable palm oil 
ecosystem; all of us have a role to play in achieving this", said Justin. 

About RSPO:
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was formed in 2004 with the 
objective of promoting the growth and use of sustainable oil palm products 
through credible global standards and engagement of stakeholders. RSPO is a 
not-for-profit, international, membership organisation that unites stakeholders 
from the different sectors of the palm oil industry including oil palm 
producers, palm oil processors or traders, consumer goods manufacturers, 
retailers, banks and investors, environmental or nature conservation NGOs, and 
social or developmental NGOs.

This multi-stakeholder representation is mirrored in the governance structure 
of RSPO such that seats in the Board of Governors, Steering Committees and 
Working Groups are fairly allocated to each sector. In this way, RSPO lives out 
the philosophy of the "roundtable" by giving equal rights to each stakeholder 
group, facilitating traditionally adversarial stakeholders in working together 
to reach decisions by consensus, and achieving RSPO's shared vision of making 
sustainable palm oil the norm.

The seat of the association is in Zurich, Switzerland, while the secretariat is 
currently based in Kuala Lumpur with satellite offices in Jakarta (ID), London 
(UK), Zoetermeer (NL), Beijing (CN) and Bogotá (CO).
 
SOURCE: Roundtable On Sustainable Palm Oil

CONTACT: For further information, kindly contact: 
Fay Richards, fay.richards@rspo.org; 
Sara Cowling, sara.cowling@rspo.org