Palm oil is the most important vegetable oil in the world. In 2015, production amounted to around 59 million tonnes on 17 million hectares of agricultural land. The largest producers are Indonesia, Malaysia, Colombia and Nigeria. The largest importers are India, the EU and China. The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) grows in humid tropical regions. Tropical rainforests are being cleared and burned to make way for monoculture oil palm plantations. This leads to significant carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, rare animal and plant species are threatened with extinction. Local indigenous communities are losing their homes. Workers are forced to work without adequate protection from aggressive pesticides, for very low wages and without the possibility of forming trade unions. These are just some of the sad consequences of the global thirst for palm oil.
Opportunities for sustainable palm oil
On the other hand, completely avoiding palm oil cannot be the answer. This is because oil palms deliver by far the highest yield among oil plants. Switching to another vegetable oil would require even more agricultural land to produce the same amount of oil. In addition, palm oil and palm kernel oil have various beneficial properties. This makes them attractive for use in food, personal care and household products, in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries, and in animal feed. In the EU, however, the largest amount of palm oil is used for bioenergy purposes, e.g. as a biofuel.
All these complex aspects led to social and environmental awareness among consumers, and demand for sustainable sourcing emerged. Founded in 2004 by several international organisations along the supply chain, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is now one of the leading bodies for monitoring the production and trade of sustainable palm oil. Its members include plantations, mills, refineries and other industry partners, traders, banks, small independent cooperatives, and environmental and social activist groups. Their goal is transparency and open dialogue to protect the environment and workers' rights. They have established standards for the certification of palm oil production and the traceability of its derivatives.
These supply chain models exist
Four different supply chain models were established:
- Book and Claim (B&C)
- Mass balance (MB)
- Segregated (SG)
- Identity Preserved (IP)
In order to trace an oil palm derivative back to the farm where it was grown, an MB, SG or IP supply chain certification system (SCCS) is required. The book-and-claim system allows manufacturers to physically separate products and certificates and sell them independently of each other. Traceability is not possible. While in the identity preservation system only a certified producer delivers the harvest to a certified mill and refinery, the segregation system is open to several certified producers or mills to combine their palm derivatives. In both cases, mixing with non-certified palm oil is prohibited. In the mass balance system, certified and non-certified palm oil can be mixed. However, the quantity of certified palm oil must be constantly monitored. The MB SCCS is an administrative system: there are no physical differences between the certified and non-certified products.
As a manufacturer of ingredients for natural cosmetics, it is important for Cosphatec to support sustainable palm oil production. Since October 2016, Cosphatec GmbH has been an associate member of the RSPO and complies with the intentions and requirements of the RSPO SCCS.
Check our progress at www.rspo.org
