InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA - Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) hit the history in the Roundtable Conference (RT2023) with the theme “Mitra untuk 20 Mendatang”. This was about to deliver impacts for almost two decades through RSPO members and partnerships’ collaboration.
RT2023 would deliver chances to get the same action in facing the main challenges in sustainable palm oil industries, such as, climate change mitigation, escalating the use of certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO), protecting labors’ rights, facilitating smallholders’ inclusivity in environmental supply chain by obeying every regulation that would be published in international level.
For almost 20 years, RSPO encouraged the changes in sustainable palm oil production and consumption globally. It started from 200 members in 16 countries in 2004, RSPO now has more than 5.700 members from more than 100 countries in the world.
In his speech, Chief Executive Officer RSPO, Joseph D’Cruz said that through voluntary action for almost 20 years, RSPO united to escalate sustainability standard in palm oil industries. What we collectively achieved are acknowledged by many stakeholders out of these industries.
“We knew the real changes in sustainable palm oil stories that really support us. As the partner in the global scale to make sustainable palm oil, we have to get through it, keep developing, and reach out new regions. There are spaces for us to surpass the certification standards and system, developing tools to enable these industries to show sustainability as what nowadays markets, regulators, and customers would have to,” he said when inaugurating RT2023, Tuesday (21/11/2023) in Jakarta that InfoSAWIT attended.
Joseph also mentioned that the main achievements in RSPO for the past two decades would be the concern, including escalating the areas to get certification from the previous ones that laid on about 125.000 hectares in 2008, to be 4,9 million hectares in 23 countries in 2023.
CSPO supply now reaches the history or up to 15,4 million metric tons. RSPO trade mark drastically increased to be more than 1.600 licenses in more than 100 countries and regions with the significant progress in China, Japan, and Southeast Asia. This means, there would be big opportunity in the countries.
RSPO Smallholder Support Fund (RSSF) also provided fund for about US$ 4,2 million to support 44.203 smallholders in 12 countries since 2013. The numbers represented about 40% of total palm oil production in the main producer countries. The smallholders would be the focus in RT2023, the chances and ways to facilitate bigger inclusivity in environmental supply chain by obeying every published regulation in the globe. (T2)
