The Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil has announced an extension to the RSPO standard that allows growers to demonstrate best practice in sustainable palm oil and help buyers deliver on their “no deforestation” commitments.
The RSPO Next is a voluntary add-on and was announced at the WWF’s 13th annual meeting as ” the next step for companies that want to build on the RSPO principles and criteria”, the organisation said.
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“Continuous improvement was a core design feature of the RSPO, and RSPO Next is a tangible demonstration of this principle being followed,” said Adam Harrison, WWF’s lead on palm oil. “WWF calls on all RSPO stakeholders to do their part to ensure the success of RSPO Next – palm oil growers need to commit to implement RSPO Next, palm oil buyers need to commit to buying it and NGOs and banks need to commit to support it.”
At the meeting, the RSPO also focused on how to better deliver the existing standard which currently captures 20% of the palm oil industry. WWF also welcomed new initiatives to explore ways to improve and maintain the quality of the certification process and outcomes.
“While independent third party assessment is at the heart of RSPO’s ethos, this new initiative also enshrines quality control of those assessments as a priority,” said Harrison. “It is not just independence we want from the assessors, but to know they can go to a site and ask the right questions and make good judgements on the adequacy of the answers.”
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