- The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is expected to issue a new standard for its member companies to abide by when it holds its annual general meeting next week.
- The new standard, an update to the existing guidelines issued in 2018, brings improvements in environmental and social safeguards, according to the RSPO.
- But advocacy groups say it introduces loopholes that could allow for greater forest loss, including a new definition of what constitutes high-carbon stock forests, a dispensation for deforestation on Indigenous lands, and allowing deforestation as long as it’s compensated for.
- The RSPO has refuted these interpretations, saying the new standard is designed to be even more stringent than the current one and that undoing the progress it’s made would be “ill-advised.”
JAKARTA — The world’s top certification body for ethical palm oil is set to vote on a major new standard aimed at balancing conservation goals with the practicalities of the palm oil industry.
This revised standard, expected to pass at the annual general assembly of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) on Nov. 13 in Bangkok, would be the first update since 2018, revising key environmental and social safeguards for the industry.
The RSPO says the new standard retains the safeguards of previous standards and introduces improvements to make them easier to implement and audit.
However, some NGOs say the new standard could open loopholes for deforestation, notably through the RSPO’s introduction of a new definition for high-carbon stock (HCS) forest that diverges from the globally recognized HCS Approach (HCSA) toolkit.
Critics warn that this approach may pave the way for more palm oil expansion into forests, as the RSPO definition prioritizes the carbon value of forests over their broader ecological role, potentially allowing companies to convert certain forest areas that would have been protected under the HCSA toolkit.
The RSPO’s retention of its existing remediation and compensation procedure (RaCP), which allows forest clearing beyond designated cutoff dates if compensated for, has also prompted concerns. Greenpeace International senior campaign adviser Grant Rosoman said this may weaken the RSPO’s stance against deforestation and limit compliance with zero-deforestation regulations like the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
“In its revised Principles and Criteria the RSPO has scored an ‘own goal’ by weakening its commitment to ensuring No Deforestation, its very raison d’être,” he said in a statement.
Deforestation concerns
Under the existing standard, palm oil companies that are members of the RSPO are required to conserve biodiverse, carbon-rich forests that support local communities, using the high conservation value (HCV) and HCS Approach toolkits to identify these forest areas. In 2018, the HCV and HCSA organizations developed an integrated assessment framework that RSPO members use to guide conservation practices.
To ensure that its rules are more applicable on the ground, the RSPO’s new standard now reflects the existence of this integrated toolkit, which members should use to assess HCV and HCS areas, according to RSPO chief executive Joseph D’Cruz.
The new standard was also revised to make it clearer, easier to audit, and more practical for diverse geographies, without weakening the 2018 safeguards, he added.
“There’s absolutely nothing that diminishes the requirement for members to conserve HCV or HCS forests,” D’Cruz told Mongabay.
However, NGOs that reviewed the final draft of the new standard identified what they said were loopholes that could potentially weaken the standard, particularly regarding commitments to no deforestation.
“The devil is in the details,” Gemma Tillack, forest policy director of U.S.-based NGO Rainforest Action Network (RAN), told Mongabay.
New definition
One potential weakness in the new standard is the revised definition of HCS forests, the NGOs say.
The 2018 standard used the definition embodied in the globally recognized HCSA toolkit. However, the RSPO has adopted a different definition in the new standard, despite the HCSA toolkit being a cornerstone of the no-deforestation commitments adopted by palm oil companies.
Tillack described the new definition as “problematic” since it may allow deforestation that the HCSA toolkit would have prevented.
“[T]he RSPO has replaced credible definitions outlined by the High Carbon Stock Approach with a definition of its own creation,” she told Mongabay.
The 2024 standard defines HCS forests as “forests with above and below ground carbon stores, where the sequestered carbon losses as a result of land use change are greater than the potential gains in carbon stock within the new development area (including set-aside and non-planted areas) over the period of one planting cycle.”
This definition considers only the carbon value of forests, ignoring their broader ecological values to biodiversity, water regulation, and cultural significance for Indigenous and local communities, Tillack said.
The RSPO definition also bases its assessments on comparing carbon losses from forest clearance with potential carbon gains from oil palm plantations.
This means RSPO members could potentially clear forests if they can argue that the oil palms they’ll plant on the land offer more carbon storage benefits. This narrow focus on carbon sequestration could lead to overestimating the environmental benefits of converting forests into oil palm plantations, according to RAN.
Even oil palm plantations that set aside a portion of their land in its undisturbed natural state can’t replicate the complex ecosystem functions of primary or secondary forests. At the same time, they also disrupt ecosystem services. A 2016 study found that 11 out of 14 ecosystem functions in oil palm plantations were reduced compared to forests, including water retention, soil erosion prevention, and local temperature moderation due to reduced shade. Plantations also deplete soil nutrients, as the continuous growth of a single crop demands intensive use of fertilizers and pesticides, further degrading soil quality over time.
Taking a simple land-use-change carbon sequestration approach also ignores other greenhouse gas emissions, such as nitrous oxide and methane, as well as emissions from processing and downstream activities, RAN noted.
“[This] would overestimate the carbon benefit of oil palm,” RAN said. “To define what constitutes a forest solely by comparing it to an oil palm plantation is perverse.”
Rosoman of Greenpeace said the new definition creates a loophole prone to abuse, enabling deforestation.
“My concern is that companies and auditors will use that definition to manipulate what’s permissible for deforestation,” he told Mongabay.
One possible scenario involves companies using non-plantable set-aside areas — such as peatlands, fragile or marginal soils, or restored non-planted areas — to boost their carbon sequestration claims, Rosoman said. This would allow them to increase their “potential gains from development,” enabling the conversion of areas with high carbon content — previously considered HCS forest under the HCSA toolkit.
Rosoman said he couldn’t understand why the RSPO would introduce its own HCS forest definition.
“The definition they use is completely strange, as if going back 10 years to how they defined it in 2013,” he said. “Why would RSPO revert to this sequestration-based definition that no one uses anymore?”
One possible explanation is the RSPO’s desire to avoid relying too heavily on the HCSA toolkit, which it doesn’t control, Rosoman said.
“I believe this stems from certain growers, particularly in Latin America and possibly other regions, who dislike being dependent on a toolkit that effectively prohibits deforestation,” he said. “So it’s clear they wanted to open the door to deforestation once more.”
RSPO chief D’Cruz denied this. “This adjustment to the definition does not weaken the standard,” he said. “Instead, it aims to balance technical rigor with the specific requirements of RSPO growers or those preparing for certification while maintaining alignment with broader sustainability goals.”
D’Cruz called on critics to consider the new standard holistically to understand its full intent. The HCS forest definition alone, he said, can’t fully capture the complexity of assessing areas with critical socioenvironmental values that need protection.
However, Rosoman said this rationale is insufficient to justify the definition change.
“The only way to interpret this change is as a weakening of the standard since they haven’t provided evidence that it strengthens it,” he said.
Compensating for deforestation
Another point of concern for NGOs in the continued use, unchanged, of the RSPO’s controversial remediation and compensation procedure.
One of the RSPO’s long-standing core principles that its members must not have carried out any deforestation after a set cutoff date. For HCV areas, which are rich in biodiversity or hold significant value for local communities, that cutoff date is November 2005; for HCS areas, it’s November 2018. No member companies can clear forests in these areas after these dates without specific evidence and assessments.
Yet violations persist, mostly due to unfamiliarity with the RSPO standard, particularly the HCV assessment requirements. Deforestation is also sometimes carried out by non-RSPO members that are later acquired or merged into existing RSPO member organizations.
Instead of imposing immediate sanctions, the RSPO in its 2018 standard introduced a remediation and compensation procedure, or RaCP, which effectively overlooks these violations if the member company makes some sort of compensation for the deforestation.
The 2024 standard retains this mechanism.
“[The RSPO] clearly don’t want to exclude potential members who have [cleared] forests after November 2018 or even after December 2020, which effectively continues certifying producers involved in deforestation,” Greenpeace’s Rosoman said.
D’Cruz said in response that the RaCP doesn’t permit deforestation. Instead, it addresses noncompliance through a structured remedial process, ensuring any environmental impacts are accounted for and rectified.
But Rosoman called the decision to keep the RaCP in the new standard “a missed opportunity,” as removing it could have strengthened its no-deforestation policy. By retaining the RaCP, he said, the RSPO risks noncompliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), according to Rosoman.
Unlike the RSPO standard, which allows companies to address past deforestation through compensation, the EUDR has a zero-tolerance policy on deforestation and doesn’t allow any such offsets or remediation plans.
D’Cruz said the RSPO’s new standard remains aligned with global regulatory frameworks, including the EUDR.
“The focus remains on ensuring that any land clearing after November 2018 is managed transparently, with stringent measures in place to prevent further deforestation and maintain compliance with evolving international regulations,” he said.
To help its members comply with the EUDR, the RSPO said it will soon begin transitioning to a new digital traceability system called PRISMA. This will allow members to incorporate EUDR-compliance geolocation data into their traceability records, making it easier for them to provide evidence of compliance to both RSPO certification and EUDR rules, according to the RSPO.
Yet the RSPO’s claim that the RaCP provides an effective remedy for forest loss is unproven, Rosoman said. An independent review in 2020 of the RaCP found that RSPO member companies had disclosed up to 1 million hectares’ (2.5 million acres’) worth of “noncompliant land clearance” — or deforestation.
Only 18% of these cases had fully completed the RaCP process, and only 8% had approved compensation plans. In more than 98% of cases, there was no evidence of on-the-ground remediation, the review found.
“So the RaCP is quite weak in terms of past deforestation. If you have such a weak compensation procedure, it’s not going to be a deterrent at all,” Rosoman said. “So it’s still an incentive for companies to clear [forests], because remediation is not onerous enough to have proper deterrent.”
Special dispensation for deforestation
Another problem in the new standard identified by observers is a dispensation for Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) to carry out deforestation oil palm cultivation and still be certified. The rationale from the RSPO is that this allows palm oil development by IPLCs that balances conservation and livelihood needs.
“This procedure will take into consideration regional and national multi-stakeholder processes and will be designed to enable communities to choose their own development path, while providing socio-economic benefits and safeguards,” the final draft of the RSPO new standard reads.
However, RAN’s Tillack said it opens the door to deforestation in critical areas under the guise of development for IPLCs, especially without strong safeguards.
“The RSPO promises to ensure the adapted standard will have safeguards to protect Indigenous and local communities that are eligible for exemption to its tougher ‘no deforestation’ requirements, but for five years, it has failed to develop safeguards that are needed to provide assurances that communities will be protected from being exploited by palm oil companies looking to expand into high-forest-cover landscapes in frontier regions,” she said.
Indigenous right to consent
All these potential loopholes go against what civil society organizations have been pushing for in the new RSPO standard, which is stronger environmental and social safeguards.
For many, there’s a sense that the new rules were pushed by companies trying to weaken the standard so that they can continue clearing forests. This effort was apparent in the previous draft of the new standard, according to Marcus Colchester, a senior policy adviser at the human rights group Forest Peoples Programme (FPP), who participated in the revision process.
He said the previous draft, circulated for public consultation in the middle of this year, contained even weaker environmental and social safeguards than the final draft. The most glaring point was the complete removal of the requirement for RSPO members to obtain the free, prior, informed consent (FPIC) of existing land users before establishing their plantations, Colchester said.
FPIC typically refers to the right of IPLCs and other forest-dependent communities to give or withhold their consent to any project affecting their lands, livelihoods and environment. And like the no-deforestation policy, it’s been a central requirement of the RSPO standard since it was adopted in 2005.
The 2018 standard requires FPIC for both current operations and new plantings. But the previous draft of the new standard removed the FPIC requirement for existing plantations, according to Colchester.
This would have given companies a way to bypass the FPIC process and open up space for grave human rights violations and land grabbing, observers say.
And while the previous draft retained the FPIC requirement for new plantings, its text was significantly watered down, according to Colchester. For instance, he said, the draft removed any reference to international laws, even though the right of IPLCs to FPIC is specifically enshrined in international laws, in particular the 1989 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention of the International Labour Organization, and the 2007 U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
The draft also removed requirements for self-representation, and took out details of FPIC for new plantings, Colchester said.
“This weakening was contrary to international laws, industry’s best practices, and reverses 19 years of RSPO policy that upholds FPIC, including in existing operations,” he said.
Colchester said he was told this was done because companies found it too onerous to comply with the FPIC process. Another reason is the difficulty of auditing FPIC. Auditors hired by RSPO members sometimes lack the social skills and time to talk to communities on the ground, Colchester said. These auditorsmight also be biased because they’re paid by the companies they’re auditing, he added.
But confirming whether a proper FPIC process has been carried out in a community isn’t actually difficult or complicated, Colchester said.
“It’s not a hard thing to verify. It’s just about the willingness of the auditors to go independently to talk to the affected communities,” he said.
The removal of FPIC in that earlier draft created an uproar among CSOs, who moved to reject the consultation draft, Colchester said.
“And after negotiation, FPIC has been reinserted back to the draft, and now is fully in line with the 2018 standard. So we’re back to where we were,” he said. “That’s the text that’s now going to the General Assembly for adoption. From our point of view, it’s now broadly acceptable [in terms of FPIC].”
Diminished standards or not?
D’Cruz denied that changes had been made to weaken the standard, including the removal of FPIC requirements, saying one of the core principles of the revision process was that there would be no diminishing of the standard compared to 2018. He added this was the case every time the RSPO’s standard was revised.
“Every step on the process, the same crosscheck happened. Is this diminishing the standards? Is there a risk that this could be interpreted in a way that could diminish the standard?” D’Cruz said. “We even brought in our certification body, our assurance body and ask them as auditors, ‘When you read this, is there a risk that an auditor could reinterpret this as reducing the standard?’”
D’Cruz said it would be better for stakeholders to focus on the improvements in the new standard, such as the explicit reference to the integrated HCV-HCSA toolkit, he said. It also includes new requirements for members to start monitoring and reporting on water usage and air pollution.
“When you look at what’s happening with climate impacts, water scarcity is likely to become an issue in the medium term,” D’Cruz said. “So you already want to start having the evidence base for us to be able to understand what is best practice, how do you improve use of water, so that in the future, if we do need to start moving towards a more rigorous approach to water footprints, we already have the evidence base.”
Under the new standard, RSPO members are also required to conduct human rights due diligence and to develop a corresponding action plan, including for their direct suppliers.
“Because we recognized that the focus on human rights is very critical right now for credibility in the marketplace,” D’Cruz said.
Achmad Surambo, executive director of Sawit Watch, an independent advocacy group based in Indonesia, said the RSPO should identify those responsible for allegedly trying to weaken the new standard.
“Is this an agenda of individuals, or certain companies? If it’s the company’s policy [to weaken the standard], then the RSPO needs to establish a team to investigate because [this goes against] the RSPO’s principle of continuous improvement,” he said.
D’Cruz said RSPO grower members actually support continuous improvements of the standard.
“It’s also important to realize a lot of our growers want our standard to be strong because the strength of the RSPO standard gives them credibility in the marketplace,” he said. “I really want to dispel a notion that our growers are constantly against improvements on this. It’s quite the opposite.”
D’Cruz said that’s why he was puzzled when NGOs voiced their concerns about the removal of FPIC in the new standard.
“Because my first reaction would be ‘why on earth would we do that?’. In a current environment where there’s so much focus on deforestation and rights, for RSPO to undo all the progress we’ve made over the last 20 years, it would certainly be an ill-advised thing to do,” he said.
Banner image: An oil palm landscape in Malaysian Borneo. Image by Rhett A. Butler for Mongabay.
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