Malaysia’s Sime Darby Plantation (SDP) announced a sustainable palm oil partnership with global NGO Conservation International on 4 October.
“While important strides have been made by responsible producers in the palm oil sector, challenges such as deforestation and social conflict continue,” Sime Darby said.
The first phase of the collaboration would be an independent review by Conservation International of SDP’s operations and palm oil supply chain.
Based on the assessment, Conservation International and SDP would identify opportunities to strengthen the company’s sustainability practices.
SDP said the partnership followed its recently launched online open access tool, Crosscheck, which allowed anyone to trace its palm oil supply chain down to the mill level.
The company said it was the world’s largest oil palm plantation company by planted area and the world’s largest producer of certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO), with a CSPO production capacity of over 2.46M tonnes.
“Our upstream operations consist of oil palm cultivation, harvesting and milling spread across Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Liberia.”
SDP has an oil palm planted area of more than 600,000ha and accounts for around 4% of global crude palm oil output.
