At Roundtable (RT) 2022 - Day Two

On the second day of #RT2022, we attended a few presentations which focused on the topic of enhancing workers' rights and reducing climate change. Segi Enam’s Khor Yu Leng was also invited to present the future of consumption and production patterns of palm oil. Day One observation can be found here.

The presentations were on “Enhancing Human Rights and Labour Rights, Adapting to Future Due Diligence and Deforestation Legislation”, the panels spoke about the proposed EU Deforestation Legislation. Key points from this is that EU businesses will need to know where the product comes from and that RSPO certification is not sufficient. The panel also shared on the EU future plans for supply chain legislation, Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and Forced Labour Regulation.

In the presentation on “Operationalising Labour Standards in the Palm Oil Sector”, the panel discussed how companies can do better to improve labour standards. The speakers were from industry and they shared how grievance mechanisms are important but the moderator also stressed the importance of the need to balance the power between workers and employers for it to be effective.

Segi Enam’s Khor Yu Leng spoke on “Future Proofing the RSPO - The State of Palm Oil 2050”. She curated findings about the future of consumption and production patterns of palm oil (in the context of other vegoils) with major forecasts for expansion according to key end uses. This is led by volumes from liquid biofuels (renewable diesel, sustainable aviation fuel), an uptick in oleochemicals (think hand wipes, sanitizers and the cleanliness drive of the Covid pandemic; and also for animal feed), but with more muted expectations for the rising food use of vegoils. See screenshots and comments in (I) and (II) below.

Source: Presentations at RSPO RT, annotated by PalmTrack, yuleng@segi-enam.com, 2 Dec 2022

The key narrative for palm oil’s yield per hectare needs to be replaced by a comparative on palm oil’s carbon footprint. The presentation by Jannick Schmidt (see III, IV above) highlights:

A certified palm oil benchmark is almost as good as sunflower oil, but rapeseed oil is significantly better on a CO2e per kg oil measure.
This certified palm oil benchmark is a bit better than diesel on a CO2 per km measure.

In the question and answer was a point about the lack of a business model for nature conservation. In that regard, readers should note how conservation is a notable part of United Plantation’s transition to a lower carbon footprint and also refer to the large-scale conservation project of the Rimba Collective for 500,000 hectares of conservation and restoration.

Yu Leng was also invited to speak at two side events.

At the Rimba Collective’s “Delivering on Half a Million Hectares of Forest Conservation & Restoration”, where she talked about the multi-year journey of palm oil to reach a large-scale conservation mindset. She emphasized data (transparency), scale and governance.

Rimba Collective, “Delivering on Half a Million Hectares of Forest Conservation & Restoration”: From the left: Neil Judd (Senior Advisor at Lestari Capital), Reuben Blackie (Manager, Sustainable Agriculture at PepsiCo), Girish Deshpande (Global Sustainability Director at Proctor & Gamble), M R Chandran (Advisor to RSPO), Khor Yu Leng (Segi Enam)

At Fortasbi’s 3rd Appreciation Event, she gave her insight into China’s Palm Oil Market.

Khor Yu Leng of Segi Enam speaking at Forstabi’s 3rd Appreciation Event.

Asked to speak about China market opportunities for Indonesia independent smallholder (ISH) RSPO Credits, we referred to two key reports in which Segi Enam was author/co-author: