Palm oil Renewed challenges of sustainability

The production and processing of palm oil is organized around a complex, global agro-industrial chain, whose stakeholders have multiple, often antagonistic interests.

The public controversy surrounding palm oil, as with many other subjects (parabens, GMOs or shale gas), has been fuelled and amplified by oversimplifications, caricature attacks and devastating shortcuts, which have gradually distanced the debate from the real scientific issues, in the fields of agronomy, nutrition, economics or social sciences.

As a result, consumers, elected representatives and scientists find themselves forced to choose sides: pro- or anti-palm oil, without any possible nuance, and very few of them are prepared to change their opinion.

Conservation NGOs insist on the negative impact of oil palm expansion on primary tropical forests, the ultimate reservoirs of biodiversity. The relationship between deforestation and palm is complex and often indirect. The problems caused by deforestation in the humid tropics do not stem from the palm as a plant, but from the development method chosen for its exploitation.

When properly planned by local or regional governments, the establishment of oil palm plantations usually results in strong economic development in the regions concerned and a significant reduction in rural poverty. If poorly managed, the expansion of plantations leads to the disappearance of forests with high conservation value, with negative impacts on wildlife, local populations and indigenous communities.

The establishment of plantation projects offers governments and all stakeholders a unique opportunity to develop a shared strategy capable of guiding the rapid expansion and sustainable development of the sector. This consultation must be based on an equitable partnership and be supported by mandatory and verifiable national or international certification standards. The Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO – Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) is a business-to-business initiative. When it was set up in 2004, it was made up of a dozen members, private sector players (including Unilever) and NGOs (including WWF), with the aim of promoting and certifying sustainable palm oil production practices. Since its creation, international RSPO certification has been based on principles and criteria that are constantly being improved. However, the initiative is considered insufficiently coercive by some NGOs, who also criticize its slow implementation, despite the considerable progress made in over fifteen years. France also signed the "Amsterdam Declaration" on December 7, 2015. This declaration, entitled "Towards Eliminating Deforestation from Agricultural Commodity Chains with European Countries", supports...