Anticipating EU's anti-deforestation law: RSPO introduces oil palm tracking system

  • 22 Nov 2023

This article has been translated by PwC Indonesia as part of our Plantation News Highlights service. PwC Indonesia has not checked the accuracy of, and accepts no responsibility for the content.

Bisnis Indonesia - Antisipasi UU Antideforestasi UE: RSPO kenalkan sistem ketelusuran sawit

By Dwi Rachmawati

Bisnis, Jakarta – The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) introduced a transparent traceability system called the Certification, Trade, and Traceability System (CTTS) in October 2023 in response to the implementation of the European Union Deforestation-Free Regulation (EUDR).

RSPO Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Joseph D'Cruz stated that the CTTS was designed to align with the EUDR through the establishment of a tripartite consortium consisting of global agricultural technology experts to digitalise the traceability system.

"This is to anticipate rapidly growing needs in the future, to meet increasingly stringent global regulations, starting from the EUDR," he said at the 2023 RSPO conference on Tuesday (21/11).

Thus far, according to him, RSPO has been actively involved with the European Commission in sharing knowledge regarding the EUDR criteria.

He is optimistic that his agency can develop a sustainability certification system that is more reliable for the industry to meet current market and regulator demands.

In 2023, RSPO conducted a certification review to establish the latest standards in 2024.

RSPO reviews the standardisation principles and criteria every 5 years. The latest RSPO Principles and Criteria were revised in 2018, and the RSPO Independent Smallholder Standard was established in 2019.

"A technical revision process is underway to produce a new set of standards in 2024," he said.

RSPO data in the past 2 decades recorded a significant increase in the area of certified oil palm plantations globally.

Meanwhile, in 2023, there were 4.9 million hectares of RSPO-certified oil palm land spread across 23 countries.

In terms of supply of certified sustainable palm oil or CSPO, he added, RSPO stated that the volume has reached 15.4 million tonnes globally.

Meanwhile, there are more than 1,600 trademark licenses under RSPO certification in more than 100 countries.

China, Japan, and Southeast Asia are regions with significant growth and large market opportunities.

So far, RSPO notes that 20% of global palm oil production has been certified as sustainable palm oil.

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