Indonesian Palm Oil Industry Initiates Steps Toward Sustainability

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) website reports that a major Indonesian plantation company has become the first certified maker of sustainable palm oil in the country. The Musim Mas Group Plantations is the first Indonesian company to "demonstrate that some of its plantations comply with the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) Principles and Criteria". This is a set of standards that helps ensure that palm oil is produced in a socially and environmentally responsible way. "The RSPO brings together oil palm growers, oil processors, food companies, retailers, NGOs and investors to help ensure that no rainforest areas are sacrificed for new oil palm plantations, that all plantations minimize their environmental impacts and that basic rights of local peoples and plantation workers are fully respected". Palm oil is a biodiesel feedstock and its use for biodiesel production has been subject of recent debate due to questions about its sustainability. Indonesia is considered as the world's biggest producer of palm oil. Liantong Gan, head of Muim Mas' Sustainability Department hopes that the certification "will encourage more Indonesian companies to follow suit".

Related information on RSPO Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Palm Oil Production http://www.rspo.org/PDF/CWG/RSPO%20Principles%20&%20Criteria%20for%20Sustainable%20Palm%20Oil%20(final%20public%20realease).pdf