RSPO criticisms investigated

The RSPO is the world’s largest and most recognisable palm oil standard. It has over 5,000 members worldwide, claims to certify 19% of the world’s palm oil and is favoured by brands such as PepsiCo, Cargill and Nestle.

However, the scheme is accused of everything from certifying plantations involved in child labour to enabling corporate greenwash. We run through the main criticisms below.

1. It does not adequately audit companies.

Auditing is an important way for certification schemes to check whether companies they are working with are living up to the required standards. Auditing can take many shapes, from unannounced factory visits to interviews with workers. 

The RSPO has been accused of failing to adequately audit members to ensure they aren’t breaking the RSPO standards, leading Greenpeace in 2019 to call it “about as much use as a chocolate teapot.”

Greenpeace’s 2018 report The Final Countdown provided examples of RSPO members that had allegedly violated its standards, including Genting Plantations. The company faced accusations that an orangutan was killed on site, and three of its subsidiaries were accused of illegally operating and planting palm in Productive Forest areas. In response, Ferrero and Mars said they would take action to remove Genting from their supply chains.

In response to a formal complaint filed by the NGO Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS) in 2018, the RSPO introduced remedial steps for Genting in relation to the killing of the orangutan, and stated that the Genting subsidiaries involved in illegal land clearing had ceased to do so since they were taken over by Genting. 

In 2020, another report by the group Transnational Palm Oil Labour Solidarity (TPOLS) claimed that five RSPO-certified oil plantations in Indonesia were involved in rampant labour abuses, such as paying under minimum wage, exposing workers to hazardous chemicals, and suppression of unions. According to TPOLS, they had managed to connect Nestle to these plantations, as it allegedly sourced some of its palm oil from mills that buy palm fruit from them.

According to a 2018 Profundo report, commissioned by Friends of the Earth, RSPO certified plantations had also been involved in forced labour, child labour and discrimination towards women, and were involved in land conflict with local communities.

Profundo said the RSPO “failed to conduct proper monitoring and implement sanctions with members that commit violations”. It added that its “auditors are fundamentally failing to identify and mitigate unsustainable practices by oil palm firms.”

Amnesty International called the RSPO assessment system “not credible”, and said monitoring of its criteria (especially regarding labour issues) was “extremely weak and based on a superficial assessment system”.

3. It’s overly influenced by its members.

The RSPO describes itself as a “global, multi-stakeholder initiative”. It states that it unites oil palm producers; processors or traders; consumer goods manufacturers; retailers; banks and investors; and NGOs. 

However, a 2019 report by the Transnational Institute (TI) looking at RSPO highlighted how standard-setting in multi-stakeholder initiatives is often “dominated by companies and large Northern NGOs, with little or no representation of workers or impacted communities.”

It used the RSPO as an example, breaking down the 4,000 RSPO members as follows:

• 41 environmental NGOs
• 12 social development NGOs
• No labour unions
• Almost no indigenous community representation

The remaining majority of its members were therefore companies.

As civil society organisations make up only a small proportion of RSPO membership, this could make it difficult for them to effectively scrutinise and challenge standards that are suggested and supported by the majority of corporate members. 

Critics also question whether the RSPO remains independent from influential members. For example, TI claims that IOI Corporation, one of Malaysia’s biggest conglomerates, was clearly non-compliant with RSPO requirements. Even so, there was a “long fight to expel IOI” because it was on the governing board of the RSPO. “The fight first had to separate the complaints panel from the Board, and even then it was hard to expel the corporation.”

What’s more, trying to get all members to agree to improving standards is a slow and complicated process, and one which may clash with companies' profit motives. This can result in the lowest common denominator winning.

4. It enables greenwashing

In 2018, over 100 global organisations signed an open letter from Friends of the Earth International and the World Rainforest Movement, stating,

“the RSPO has been used by the palm oil industry to greenwash corporate destruction and human rights abuses, while it continues to expand business, forest destruction and profits.”

Companies regularly state in corporate responsibility reports that they are RSPO members, which could make it look like they are taking action on palm oil when they are actually doing very little. Reckitt Benckiser, for example, owner of brands such as Dettol, Nurofen, Strepsils and Finish, has been an RSPO member since 2006. Yet, according to its 2019 reporting to RSPO, only around 10% of the palm oil and derivatives it used was RSPO certified.

The Transnational Institute also highlighted that the public might perceive the RSPO Palm Trace label as more effective than it actually is. It stated,

“if a product is labelled with RSPO’s Palm Trace label, the public perception is that this means it is ‘good palm oil’ (with implications that no deforestation happened, that it is produced organically, with good labour conditions and fair prices etc etc) whereas in reality it is merely evidence of refiners, manufacturers and retailers signing up to a much more limited set of criteria, only some of which is properly audited and evaluated.”

Amnesty International says the “RSPO is acting as a shield which deflects greater scrutiny of its members' practices”.

5. Its standards aren’t high enough.

Some also suggest that RSPO requirements for suppliers are too low.

For example, it took years of campaigning for the RSPO to take meaningful action against peat clearance, peatland being a major storage point for carbon emissions. Draining these carbon-rich organic soils for plantations can result in massive CO2 emissions and other environmental problems. 20% of oil palm planting takes place on peat soil, according to conservation group Wetlands International.

In 2018 the RSPO tightened its standards so it now prohibits suppliers from clearing peatlands for palm plantations.

But the RSPO still doesn’t fully take into account recent deforestation. Some RSPO certified palm oil plantations occupy land that until was forest or wildlife habitat as recently as 30 years ago.

The RSPO states that in 2018 it introduced “new requirements to ensure the effective contribution of RSPO to halting deforestation”. Despite the RSPO claiming to have strengthened its criteria in 2018,  a 2020 study published in the Science of the Total Environment journal shows what is happening in practice. The study states that three-quarters of oil palm concessions in Indonesia and Malaysian Borneo certified by the RSPO occupied land that was forest and/or wildlife habitat after 1990.

The study author, Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, stated,

“The fact that someone else did deforestation just a few years before does not absolve the palm oil plantation’s owner and definitely does not justify a sustainability label by a certification scheme”.

The study claimed that some RSPO suppliers had replaced the habitats of endangered mammals and biodiverse tropical forests. These results could appear to contradict prior research that suggested RSPO certification effectively reduced deforestation.

However, Cazzolla Gatti also states that if the RSPO adopted a policy of only certifying production that doesn't come from recently cleared forests and endangered species habitat, from say the past 50 years, there wouldn't be enough plantations available to supply the global demand for environmentally friendly palm oil. He says,

“So the fundamental question in this regard is: do we [...] really need palm oil?”

The RSPO commented: “These standards are not intended to absolve members of any past issues, rather RSPO seeks to ensure that members implement practices which safeguard the environment, protect human rights, and avoid the recurrence of past problems.” View the full response here.