MESSAGE FROM THE CEO

Dear Valued Members,
I am honoured to welcome you all to the 2023 RSPO General Assembly (GA20), which marks a significant new chapter in the RSPO global partnership.

Since assuming the role of Chief Executive Officer in March 2022, I have spent much time visiting our members across the world, from executive board rooms in big cities to palm oil plantations in remote rural areas. My experience this past year has been an eye-opening and inspiring journey that has given me a deeper understanding and appreciation of our multi-stakeholder alliance that has been built over the past two decades.

It has been invigorating to see the commitment from RSPO Members who truly believe in the sustainable transformation of the palm oil value chain, and are working hard and investing in innovative ways to make this a reality. I am deeply grateful for the conversations and invaluable lessons I have shared with our members. These insights have helped refine and reframe our strategy to steer RSPO forward as a sustainability organisation and agent of positive change.

This year’s Assembly commemorates RSPO’s 20th anniversary since it first began its sustainability journey in 2004. So much has been achieved over these past twenty years – growing from a small alliance of a handful of countries, to a formidable global organisation counting over 5600 members, cultivating a mindset and approach that embraces sustainability as a core value. By mobilising a multi-stakeholder process to certify 20% of global palm oil production, RSPO has helped improve the lives and livelihoods of countless smallholders, workers and local communities across the world.

The RSPO’s track record of the past two decades has demonstrated that no vision is too ambitious with an effective and committed partnership. As we look towards the next stage of scaling up the sustainable palm oil industry, I’d like to reiterate my call for all RSPO Members to continue to strengthen our collaboration and shared responsibility, and take the RSPO partnership to even greater heights over the next twenty years and beyond.

Here’s to a successful GA20!

Joseph JD D’Cruz
Chief Executive Officer, RSPO

MESSAGE FROM THE CO-CHAIRS

Dear Fellow Members,
We are deeply honoured to welcome you to the 20th RSPO General Assembly (GA20) in Jakarta, a prelude to our organisation’s 20th anniversary since it was founded in April 2024. It fills us with pride to reflect on those early days at the inaugural meeting in Kuala Lumpur, where 16 countries and 200 participants came together to pledge their support for the Roundtable process. Today, we have grown significantly to become a worldwide partnership of over 5,600 members. Beyond these rising numbers each year, we have also grown in the capacity, resources and expertise to be able to unlock the much needed sustainable transformation of the global palm oil industry.

As we commence this year’s assembly, we would like to take the opportunity to thank Dato’ Carl Bek-Nielsen for serving as Co-Chair of the RSPO Board of Governors for nine years. We continue to be inspired by the lessons and wisdom imparted by his nearly decade-long leadership, which has helped shape the RSPO to what it is today.

Over the past year, we have successfully hosted key events uniting members and, more importantly, strengthened our alliances across various regions to better leverage the opportunities and address challenges in our industry. The Inter-American Conference in Miami brought together RSPO Members in North America and Latin America for the first time, exploring the way forward for the Americas as emergent sustainable palm oil leaders. The Sustainable Palm Oil Dialogue (SPOD) in Frankfurt focused on efforts to successfully consolidate efforts in light of the newly adopted European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), while the China Sustainable Palm Oil Forum in Kunming highlighted CSPO’s progress in China, as well as actions to further transform the Chinese market. We have also seen the creation of the Thailand Sustainable Palm Oil Alliance (TSPOA) together with the Thailand Environment Institute, creating a platform to further boost sustainable palm oil in Thailand.

Outside conference halls, RSPO has also seen significant milestones on the ground, showing that embedding sustainability leads to livelihood improvement and economic development among smallholders and local communities. In Aceh Province, Indonesia, the PESATRI smallholder group successfully obtained both RSPO and ISPO certification, becoming sustainability role models by championing the protection of one of the last remaining tropical rainforests in the world. We welcomed the very first group of independent farmers from the Amazonian region of San Martín, Peru, who gained the distinction of becoming the country’s first RSPO smallholder members. We also certified the first Colombian independent smallholder group, making Colombia the second country to achieve RSPO certification in Latin America. RSPO has also successfully launched community engagement and outreach programmes in Nigeria, and, in partnership with Oxfam, recently kicked off in Honduras and Guatemala to align initiatives for poverty reduction.

We wish to continue building on this strong momentum as we mark a critical next chapter in scaling up the sustainable palm oil value chain. Integral to this is launching the newly revised RSPO Principles and Criteria (P&C) and Independent Smallholder (ISH) Standard, capping off an inclusive and collaborative process to ensure the RSPO Standards’ effectiveness and credibility in palm oil production.

As we turn the page of the last twenty years and now set our vision towards the future of the RSPO, we would like to express our deepest gratitude to all our members for your continued faith in our mission and the RSPO process. Beyond celebrating our triumphs of the past two decades, we also recognise the value of self-reflection and the pursuit of continuous improvement. This is crucial as we navigate through present and upcoming challenges amidst an increasingly demanding sustainability landscape, at a time when innovative solutions are needed more than ever to tackle the climate emergency.

RSPO has been at the forefront of sustainability since our earliest days, and while several new intersecting challenges have emerged since our inception, it only gives us more space to grow, adapt, and maximise our unique value and positive impact. The expansion of the universe of sustainability has been, in part, due to the work RSPO has done over the past two decades to redefine new norms of responsible and sustainable palm oil production, ultimately pushing the industry forward.

We believe that the underlying values that united us at RSPO’s foundation are what fortifies our partnership in fostering sustainability. Our shared values will be the driving force enabling us to continue to cultivate positive change in the lives of people and the guardianship of our planet for many years to come.

Anne Rosenbarger and José Roberto Montenegro Baide
RSPO Co-Chairs