Sustainable Palm Oil Meeting Concludes In Singapore

“This year’s RT is indeed a milestone not only because we have reached the tenth year mark, but more importantly because this RT is taking place in the context of an ongoing review of the Principles & Criteria that were established five years ago,” said Mr Darrel Webber, Secretary General of the RSPO, in his concluding oration on Thursday afternoon.

2 Nov 2012 --- The 10th Annual Roundtable Meeting on Sustainable Palm Oil (RT10), the world’s largest sustainable palm oil meeting, has concluded in Singapore. The meeting, presented by international multi-stakeholder organisation the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), reflected the strong commitment from palm oil stakeholders worldwide towards Sustainable Palm Oil.

“This year’s RT is indeed a milestone not only because we have reached the tenth year mark, but more importantly because this RT is taking place in the context of an ongoing review of the Principles & Criteria that were established five years ago,” said Mr Darrel Webber, Secretary General of the RSPO, in his concluding oration on Thursday afternoon. “We must continue to work closely with one another, keep up this momentum and stay focused on our objective of transforming markets.”

RT10 also served as a platform for proactive engagement of stakeholders for comments and feedback on the revised Principles & Criteria (P&C), which is currently in the stage of public/stakeholder consultation which ends on 30 November 2012. RSPO is expected to vote on the revised P&C by April 2013.

Over 800 delegates from 37 countries around the world, the largest ever number of countries represented, participated in RT10. Speakers included representatives from oil palm producers, palm oil processors or traders, consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, banks and investors, environmental or nature conservation NGOs and social or developmental NGOs. The theme for this year’s Roundtable Meeting was “10 Years of Driving Sustainability. A Business Model for the Future”.

Following the conclusion of RT10, the RSPO held its 9th General Assembly (GA9) this afternoon in Singapore. The GA is held annually in accordance with the RSPO Statues and by-laws to discuss on-going resolutions that need to be deliberated and decided by all of the RSPO ordinary members.

A total of 210 RSPO members representing all seven stakeholder groups voted at the GA9. These comprised 56 Growers, 58 Processors & Traders, 48 Consumer Goods Manufacturers, 18 Retailers, 5 Banks & Investors, 18 Environmental NGOs and 7 Social NGOs.

The attending members at GA9 (including via proxies) passed three resolutions and voted against one resolution.

The resolutions that were passed at GA9 today were:
Resolution 6a – to confirm the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the auditors of the RSPO for the financial year ending 30 June 2013.
Resolution 6c – Proposal for RSPO to prioritize concrete steps to address the current low demand for CSPO and to accelerate uptake to ensure continued credibility and sustainability of the RSPO.
Resolution 6d – The application of and reporting against relevant Principles and Criteria across all member sectors.

The resolution that was voted against at GA9 today was:
Resolution 6b – Proposed amendments to Article 6.1 of the RSPO By-Laws and Article 9 of the RSPO Statutes regarding the composition of the Executive Board. These amendments comprise the following:
1.  Increase in EB members from the current 16 to 22;
2.  Increase in representation for the Rest of the World Growers from 1 to 4 i.e. Africa, Latin America, Thailand and Rest of the World;
3.  Increase in representation for smallholders from 1 to 4 i.e. Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Rest of the World.

At the General Assembly, there was also an election for the Executive Board Member representing Oil Palm Growers (Rest of the World). Dr Simon Lord, Group Director of Sustainability, New Britain Palm Oil, was elected to serve a two-year term on the Board.

The current estimated annual production capacity of RSPO-certified sustainable palm oil is 7.2 million metric tonnes, approximately 14 percent of global palm oil production. Spread over 1.6 million hectares of certified area, about 45.5% of the world's current RSPO-certified sustainable palm oil production capacity comes from Indonesia, followed by 44.7% from Malaysia, and the remaining 9.8% from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Brazil, Colombia and Ivory Coast.