ZSL’s Sustainable Palm oil Platform has captured the attention of palm oil stakeholders and provided a forum for businesses to open up about their experiences producing, procuring and trading CSPO so that others can benefit from lessons learned.

 

A primary factor slowing market transformation of palm oil towards sustainable production is the lack of awareness and support for environmentally responsible production across the spectrum of palm oil stakeholders. Businesses along the supply chain suffer from weak communication and poor transparency.  The consumers and retailers that drive demand and policy makers that frame the production environment demonstrate a lack of awareness about the impact of palm oil production on biodiversity. These stakeholders have a powerful role to play in leveraging wider implementation of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil Principles and Criteria, yet there is currently no platform available to engage and inform them or enhance their coordination to influence better production and greater demand for certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO).

 

 

ZSL’s Indonesia-based Oil Palm and Biodiversity (OPB) team is working to overcome this obstacle by creating an online Sustainable Palm oil Platform (SPP) which will deliver a comprehensive library of resources and tools to inform best practice and sustainability in the palm oil sector. With this project, ZSL is continuing its mission to provide knowledge-based, practical solutions and tools to address the effects of oil palm production on biodiversity.

 

To develop the SPP, the OPB team has spoken with over 100 stakeholders along the length of the CSPO supply chain to identify the spectrum of environmentally responsible practices underway in the oil palm sector and reveal where insufficient information hinders progress towards sustainability. Many of these stakeholders appreciate the complexity and barriers involved in producing, refining, sourcing, and investing in sustainable palm oil and have been happy to share their experiences and expertise in overcoming these difficulties. Retailers have shared their challenges and solutions in sourcing CSPO, growers have demonstrated ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from production, and investors have discussed how they can play a role in encouraging best practice. The enthusiasm and participation volunteered by stakeholders has been very encouraging.

 

"ZSL has provided a comprehensive and user-friendly palm oil platform. This website will not only prove to be a reputable and reliable one-stop source of information for the entire supply chain, but also, as a NGO working with the palm oil sector, it is also an excellent place for us to showcase and share our own outputs too." Anna Lyons, Fauna & Flora International Over 20 case studies will be available for the SPP launch at RT10, featuring organizations from a range of stages along the supply chain.

 

As the SPP launches, it will provide a much needed framework for disseminating research, resources, and guidance to the relevant groups of stakeholders to facilitate greater demand for environmentally responsible palm oil production. SPP will also report on current projects and highlight available resources to create a supply-chain gap analysis. The SPP will raise awareness of where more information is needed, where collaboration should be encouraged, and where resources may be pooled.