BUSINESS

RSPO CONTINUOUSLY IMPROVING ON SUSTAINABLE JOURNEY AMID HEADWINDS

29/11/2022 04:25 PM

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 29 (Bernama) -- The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is redoubling its efforts to continuously chart a sustainability path for the palm oil sector amid various headwinds ahead.

RSPO chief executive officer Joseph D’Cruz said it needs to extend the impact beyond its members and supporters by telling a better story on how the sector contributes to net zero, species conservation and biodiversity while helping rural families prosper across developing countries.

“We need to build stronger partnerships with national schemes that are essential to establish sustainability as the norm in production landscapes, with traders retailers and financial institutions that are important to increase demand for sustainable palm products, particularly markets like India, China and Indonesia and with the producers, smallholders, processors and buyers who are yet part of this sustainability journey,” said D’cruz.

He was speaking at the RSPO Annual Roundtable Conference on Sustainable Palm Oil (RT2022), themed “Scaling Up The Sustainable Palm Oil Value Chain Through Collective Action”, here today.

At a press conference later, D’Cruz said RSPO will continue to work with the industry players to transform and reframe jobs as careers in the sector by streamlining automation and mechanisation to produce more while reducing the labour intensity of production.

“Building an industry in the future that is labour intensive as the current model is probably not sustainable.

“We are not arguing to eliminate labour and mechanise everything, but we want to build an industry where we are creating jobs that people want to have because part of being sustainable is also about making sure the workers we bring in have decent wages, good working conditions, productive jobs and so on,” he said.

Meanwhile, RSPO co-chair Datuk Carl Bek-Nielson said individuals and companies must be the change to push for sustainability efforts which are still lacking.

“We need people, individually, companies to step up and take ownership and not be shy to mention that they are supporting and using palm oil for a good cause.

“When we are united as one entity, we can move forward and promote good deeds like RSPO and this is where the concept of shared responsibility is vital because everyone is doing their part,” said Bek-Nielson.

In Malaysia, the RSPO certification among industry players consists of less than one per cent or about 1,700 independent smallholders.

At the event, D’Cruz also revealed the RSPO Impact Report 2022 which revealed several key achievements over the last nearly two decades since RSPO’s foundation in 2004.

RSPO has certified about 4.5 million hectares of land around the world, conserved and protected over 300,000 hectares of the production landscape and prevented greenhouse emissions equivalent to nearly 400,000 cars being driven annually since 2015.

It had also directed over US$4 million (US$1=RM4.502) through the RSPO Smallholder Support Fund to support thousands of smallholders across 12 countries.

-- BERNAMA

 


BERNAMA provides up-to-date authentic and comprehensive news and information which are disseminated via BERNAMA Wires; www.bernama.com; BERNAMA TV on Astro 502, unifi TV 631 and MYTV 121 IFLIX channels and BERNAMA Radio on FM93.9 (Klang Valley), FM107.5 (Johor Bahru), FM107.9 (Kota Kinabalu) and FM100.9 (Kuching) frequencies.

Follow us on social media :
Facebook : @bernamaofficial, @bernamatv, @bernamaradio
Twitter : @bernama.com, @BernamaTV, @bernamaradio
Instagram : @bernamaofficial, @bernamatvofficial, @bernamaradioofficial
TikTok : @bernamaofficial

© 2024 BERNAMA   • Disclaimer   • Privacy Policy   • Security Policy