RSPO standards updated: What are the changes and do they align with EUDR?

After an intensive two-year audit bringing a range of stakeholders to the table, the RSPO’s standards, including its Principles and Criteria and the Independent Smallholder Standard, have been updated. They were voted into place at the RSPO Roundtable in Thailand, Bangkok this week and signed on 13 November.

Introduction of human rights due diligence​

Growers now have to conduct human rights due diligence not only for their whole operation, but also their direct suppliers. This due diligence aims to provide fair wages and safe working conditions for workers.

The new standards contain “stronger grievance mechanisms, new safeguards, and protections against forced labour,” said RSPO CEO Joseph D’Cruz.

The inclusion of human rights due diligence in the standards this time around was "in part" due to their presence in the upcoming EUDR and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), said Yen Hun Sung, director for standards and sustainability at RSPO.

“There is an expectation that human rights need to take a stronger, more prominent role in sustainability certification,” he told FoodNavigator.

When revising standards, the RSPO must take into account the what regulators want, as well as market interests and the desires of their own members, he said. Revisions aim to balance these points.

The Independent Smallholder Standard​

Alongside the Principles and Criteria, the RSPO has also updated its Independent Smallholder Standard, guidelines to push for certification focused on smallholder farmers specifically, which were also signed at the roundtable.

Smallholder farmers are defined as those with an accumulative planted area of oil palm less than or equal to 50 hectares. The standard is only applicable to independent smallholders.

This standard places a larger responsibility on group managers, compared to past certification systems, and those applying must be a member of a group of independent smallholders seeking certification. Group managers are trained in providing training to the other smallholder farmers in the group. While the guidelines within the standard are general, it allows for interpretation within the framework of national laws.

Once the smallholder is eligible, they must fulfil two milestones. The first is to show continual improvement and progress, followed by the second where they achieve full compliance. During the assessment process, smallholders can sell fresh fruit branches for RSPO credits, the allowance of which increases in volume after milestone A. Once certified, these can be sold through the supply chain or to a certified mill.

According to Yen, the smallholder standard balances the need to provide smallholders with a safe working environment and workers rights with an emphasis on good agricultural practices. If good agricultural practices, such as, for example, a good fertiliser application schedule, are used, yields will increase, and it will be easier for smallholders to remain inside the boundaries of their existing land.

Inconsistencies with the EUDR ​

The EUDR doesn’t align with the RSPO standards on everything. For example, the two have a different definitions of a forest.

The EUDR uses a quantitative definition of forest, in line with the FAO’s. It defines a forest as an area of trees that is more than 0.5 hectares in size, with a canopy cover of more than 10% and with trees reaching an average height of five or more metres.

The RSPO, however, uses a qualitative definition. To be certified, growers must not deforest any high conservation value (HCV) areas and high carbon stock (HCS) forests. HCV areas are defined by their species diversity, their cultural value, ecosystems and habitats (including landscape level ecosystems), ecosystem services, and community needs.

This includes the protection of primary forests, forests consisting of native trees and having little-to-no human disturbance, which according to Global Forest Watch make up about 26% of forests.

Criticisms of the standard ​

Some NGOs, such as Greenpeace, have criticised the standard for including a definition of HCS forests that differs from that offered by the HCS Approach (HCSA) toolkit, with which it was previously aligned.

The HCSA ‘uses field data on levels of biomass, vegetation structure and composition,’ along with a view from above, to get an idea of a forest’s conservation value. High, medium and low density forests, as well as young regenerating forests, come under the definition of HCS forests. Scrub and open land do not.

“The definition of HCS that RSPO members must apply before development is now perversely based on a comparison with the amount of carbon that may be accumulated by oil palms taking the place of forest destroyed for a plantation,” said Greenpeace senior advisor Grant Rosoman.

He also suggested that the standards allow deforestation after the cutoff date of November 2018 so long as remedy and compensation procedures are applied, misaligning it with the EUDR.