The use of the high conservation value (HCV) and high carbon stock (HCS) approaches by palm oil companies assessed on SPOTT

The High Conservation Value (HCV) and High Carbon Stock (HCS) approaches are used to identify and protect important environmental and social values that should be conserved. This briefing note provides an overview of the commitments to the HCV and HCS approaches made by companies, drawing on SPOTT assessment data from October 2015 to November 2017

Palm oil supply chain complexity impedes implementation of corporate no-deforestation commitments

In recent years, many palm oil companies have committed to eliminating deforestation activities from their operations. NGO reports and companies’ self-identified challenges indicate that barriers exist that impede the implementation of these commitments. Here we show that complexity across the extent of the palm oil supply chain poses a major barrier that hinders companies from being able to secure guaranteed no-deforestation commitments. Other barriers include the lack of consensus on definitions of deforestation, inadequate government support and persisting markets for unsustainably-produced palm oil in China and India, which undermine companies’ efforts to achieve supplier engagement and compliance. Current certification standards, meanwhile, require amendment to help overcome barriers posed by supply chain complexity. In conclusion, the existing model used to address palm oil-driven deforestation, based on NGO shaming campaigns and unilateral adoption of commitments by individual companies, is unlikely to achieve no deforestation in the current context of palm oil production and trade. Instead, a broader set of complementary mechanisms is required to overcome supply chain complexity and ensure that no-deforestation commitments can be implemented successfully

Should I stay or should I go? Understanding stakeholder dis/engagement for deforestation-free palm oil

Addressing tropical deforestation in the palm oil sector involves a diverse range of stakeholders who engage or disengage with each other. Palm oil Global Value Chain (GVC) firms (plantation companies, traders and processors, consumer goods manufacturers, retailers) as well as non-governmental organisations, financial institutions, consultancies and certification bodies, pursue their respective organisations’ agendas through engagement practices, including through coalitions, in a Palm Oil Sustainability Network (POSN). Building on interviews with different stakeholder groups, this qualitative study characterises and critically analyses ‘stakeholder engagement’ by examining: (1) The priority targets for engagement among different POSN stakeholders, (2) How mechanisms and tools are used in POSN stakeholder engagement or disengagement for addressing deforestation, and (3) The implications of stakeholder engagement or disengagement for addressing deforestation. Engagement and disengagement practices are shaped by and reshape GVC governance, with powerful stakeholders emerging as knowledge brokers and norms-setters, raising important challenges for how deforestation is addressed

A field experiment to reduce deforestation while benefiting the livelihoods of Indonesian smallholder oil palm farmers

We will implement a randomised field experiment to test whether a new training intervention delivered to independent smallholder oil palm farmers as part of a palm oil company’s “No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation” (NDPE) policy can reduce deforestation in Sumatra, Indonesia. The objective is to identify how NDPE policies can be improved to enhance: 1) their effectiveness in terms of reducing deforestation; 2) farmers’ perceptions of the fairness of NDPE policies; and 3) NDPE policies’ equity in terms of having no negative impact on, or ideally improving, farmers’ market access and prices received for palm oil production. The trial is being conducted in partnership with Musim Mas (MM), an Indonesian palm oil company. The participants will be smallholder oil palm farmers in 87 villages in Aceh Selatan and Aceh Singkil, two regencies (Kabupaten) in the Province of Aceh in Sumatra. The study consists of a common intervention offered to all villages in the sample and an experimental treatment layered on top and randomly assigned to half of the villages. The common intervention comprises a standard training package on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Financial Literacy. The experimental treatment consists of training on MM’s NDPE policy with a norm-based framing. We will compare deforestation between villages that receive the baseline intervention and villages that additionally receive the experimental treatment. We will also compare perceived social norms for nature conservation and beliefs about environmentally- and socially-responsible farming behaviour between participants in treated and control villages. We expect a smaller annual reduction in forest cover, an improvement in perceived social importance of conservation, and improvement in beliefs about the importance of environmentally- and socially-responsible farming behaviour in treated villages that receive the norm-based NDPE training compared to control villages that receive the standard training package only