RSPO scores higher than other sustainable palm oil standards according to new report

Last week, the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s National Committee of the Netherlands (IUCN NL) released a report titled, Setting the Biodiversity Bar for Palm Oil Certification, which provides an overview of different palm oil sustainability standards’ measures to stop biodiversity loss and restore habitat for biodiversity conservation. It highlights critical areas (particularly in the certification standards’ biodiversity and level of assurance criteria) that need to be improved, and recommends specific actions for palm oil buyers and investors. 

The report concludes that RSPO shows best results in relation to both biodiversity protection and level of assurance. RSPO attains almost 70 percent of the maximum score for biodiversity protection and slightly over 85 percent for level of assurance.

RSPO Chief Executive Officer, Datuk Darrel Webber stated “We welcome the IUCN National Committee of the Netherlands benchmark study for validating the work done by our membership when they adopted our RSPO Principles & Criteria for the Sustainable Production of Palm Oil 2018. Our standard provides a framework for the protection of biodiversity and a system to verify its implementation, that according to this report, is best in class. This should be a clear signal to brands and companies looking to source sustainable palm oil, that they should be demanding RSPO material. Additionally, the study give us good recommendations on where we might continue our journey of continuous improvement to improve the standard even further.” 

Read the full report here.