Keen to get an international recognition of its sustainable palm oil certification scheme and boost the competitiveness of its palm oil, Indonesia is currently working on expanding its Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO), certification from the upstream sector to also cover its downstream industries.
“We are currently preparing the technical arrangements for ISPO certification of downstream industries,” Emil Satria, Director for Forestry and Plantation Industries at the Ministry of Industry, told The Palm Scribe on Wednesday (9/6.) ISPO currently only covers the upstream sector such as oil palm plantation companies and mills.
The regulation for the ISPO certification of the downstream industry that uses palm oil as raw material, would take the form of a Regulation of the Minister of Industry.
ISPO certification is currently regulated by Presidential Regulation Number 44 of 2020 on the Certification System for Sustainable Oil Palm Plantation in Indonesia, and Regulation of the Minister of Agriculture Number 38 of 2020 on the Implementation of the Certification of Indonesian Sustainable Oil Palm Plantations.
“We hope to be able to complete it his year,” Satria said in a text message.
In an online discussion titled “The Future of the ISPO, Moving Towards International Recognition,” on Monday, a number of industry experts lamented that ISPO was yet to receive wide recognition overseas.
Echoing many of the other speakers, Satria told the discussion that global consumers were increasingly requiring that pam oil products and in products are produced sustainably. “Therefore, the sustainability of palm oil products will become the determining value in winning our markets in the future,” Satria had said.
Indonesia is the world’s top producer, exporter as well as consumer of palm oil. Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s second largest producer, together supply around 85 percent of the world’s palm oil.
Resistance against the commodity however, has risen, especially in the West where governments and also many in their private sectors are discriminating against palm oil and products containing palm oil.