Musim Mas mill becomes first in the world to clear RSPO P&C 2018 in quest to make sustainable palm oil the norm
The Indonesian mill has ‘passed’ the RSPO P&C 2018 – a stringent set of environmental and social standards with which members must comply to gain/retain RSPO certification.
There is in an ever-urgent need and growing global concern that commodities are produced without causing harm to the environment or society. The palm oil supply chain is a highly complex one and particularly vulnerable to corruption.
RSPO certification is an assurance that all bodies that take legal ownership and physically handle oil palm products that claim to be sustainable have actually been certified.
Theory of Change (ToC)
The RSPO is working to make sustainable palm oil the norm, where oil palm, the environment and local communities can coexist.
Its ToC is a framework demonstrates how it expects to achieve this by implementing strategies and activities that lead to outputs and outcomes and ultimately, deliver change.
The framework is based on two guiding principles – relevancy and trust. Underpinning these principles are commitment, collaboration and accountability – without which, the RSPO cannot trigger the transformation of the sector.
To get there are three components that act as the backbone to the ToC; namely, mobilize (strategies and activities); act (outputs) and transform (outcomes).
These will affect the three major impacts of palm oil production identifed by the RSPO – prosperity, people and planet – and finally lead to achieving its vision.
RSPO P&C 2018 is aligned with the ToC and focuses on these impacts, under which are a wide range of requirements like long term planning and economic viability, human rights adherence, no child labor, effective soil conservation and eliminating pollution, among others.
P&C 2018 also contains several substantive improvements to P&C 2013, such as the inclusion of the High Carbon Stock Approach toolkit to better tackle no deforestation; addressing gender gaps; the ruling that no new developments are allowed on peatlands after November 15, 2018; and clearer safeguards for labor rights.
P&C codes are reviewed every five years and are aligned with the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling Alliance (ISEAL), a global membership association for credible sustainability standards
PT Multipersada Gatramegah – which obtained its RSPO certification in March 2018 – was voluntarily audited against RSPO P&C 2018 for its second Annual Surveillance Audit (ASA 2). The mill is located in southern part of the Central Kalimantan Province of Indonesia with a certified supply base of 9,278 hectares.
It has a processing capacity of 45 metric tons of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) per hour, producing approximately 30,000 MT of certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO) and 7,000 MT of certified sustainable palm kernel (CSPK).
Core value
The mill’s parent corporation, Musim Mas Group, has 14 plantations and 16 mills in Indonesia, along with operations in Malaysia, India, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, China and Vietnam.
The privately-owned company, headquartered in Singapore, is a leader in the palm oil sector, involved in every part of the supply chain, from upstream oil palm plantations to midstream and downstream operations, to marketing and sale of value added products globally.
Musim Mas places sustainability as a core value and was the first company with major operations in Indonesia to join the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil in 2004. It was also the first Southeast Asian company to produce palm oil, according to the standards for responsible palm oil established by the Palm Oil Innovation Group.
