Palm Oil Certification

There have been arguments about sustainability certification of palm oil products for the past year or two. The Europeans as the consumer would like to apply certain standards, called RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil), regarding amount of deforestation and other environmental issues to palm oil producer countries. However, many of the producers have complained the amount of cost and energy spent on abiding to the regulation does not worth the result since the Europeans are not major players in the market anyway.

During the past year, Indonesia as the number 1 producer in the world has planned to apply its own standard called ISPO (Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil) which is similar to but less stringent than RSPO. Those who has qualifed for RSPO will automatically be ISPO certified. Therefore it will not hassle those who has been certified earlier. Malaysia as the number 2 producer is planning to join Indonesia on pushing this standard.