From 28 to 30 November 2022, the Segi Enam team attended the RSPO’s Roundtable (RT) 2022 #RT2022 at the Shangri-La Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The theme was “Scaling up the sustainable palm oil value chain through collective action.”

We contributed to the judging effort for the conservation and smallholder segments of the RSPO Excellence Award, with Yu Leng as one of the three judges, alongside conservationists Dr Erik Meijaard and Dr Nadine Ruppert. The awards were given out at the evening event preceding two full days of conference proceedings on 29-30 November.

Day one kicked off with a celebration of smallholder certification:

Professor Tan Sri Dr Jemilah Mahmood gave the keynote speech. In her down-to-earth address, she touched on issues related to the palm oil industry and stressed that more needs to be done. The open questions about palm oil include those on zoonotic diseases, air and water pollution, floods and impact on indigenous people.

There were 13 discussion sessions (over two days) covering issues related to sustainability, conservation, certification and labour rights. We attended presentations on “The Asian Dialogue - Catalyst for Sustainable Palm Oil”, “Balancing the Needs of People, Planet and Prosperity in Sustainability Standards” and “Ensuring the Development of Sustainable Palm Oil Drives Smallholder Inclusion at Scale”, and had numerous meetings on the side lines, which covered diverse topics from labour issues to smallholder inclusion. We also looked in at evening events hosted by Musim Mas and WWF.

The Asian Dialogue - Catalyst for Sustainable Palm Oil. Key points on the businesses in Asian countries are promoting sustainable palm oil products. SuperIndo is the first business to promote RSPO certified palm oil in Indonesia.

Balancing the Needs of People, Planet and Prosperity in Sustainability Standards. Key points on how to achieve sustainability and not leaving certain stakeholders out.

Please, view the list of discussion sessions and speakers here, and presentations can be accessed here. RSPO also published its Impact Report 2022. Below are some excerpts from it. We will post further views for PalmTrack (subscribers only).

Indonesia and Malaysia remain the largest producers, collectively 80% of the CSPO volumes.

Growth in RSPO Certified Area. Stark increase in RSPO Certified Area in Africa.

Certified smallholders (scheme and independent), 22,000 globally with 65,603 hectares and FFB production at 1.2 million Biggest is in Indonesia, where there are 10,953 farmers, with an area of 26,839 hectares.

research@segi-enam.com | 2 Dec 2022