560 Of 718 ISPO Certified Companies, Gapki Committed To Realizing A Sustainable Indonesian Palm Oil Industry

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Palm Oil Association (Gapki) affirms its commitment to realizing a sustainable Indonesian palm oil industry. This is in line with the increasing number of companies that have been certified by Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO).

Head of the Sustainability Division of Gapki, Bambang Dwi Laksono, said that Gapki's data shows that about 560 of the 718 Gapki member companies are ISPO certified. "So about 78 percent have been certified ISPO," said Bambang as quoted by Antara, Thursday, August 25.

Bambang explained that the sustainable palm oil industry is one of the implementations of the vision and mission of Gapki.

For that, he said, Gapki continues to coordinate with 14 branches in Indonesia to encourage, provide consultation, and find alternative solutions related to ISPO implementation in companies.

"We hope that in the future more GAPKI members will get ISPO certificates," he said.

Bambang added, talking about sustainable certification in oil palm plantations, there are ISPO, RSPO, and ICC. ISPO is mandatory, so like it or not, it must be implemented as a form of legislation in Indonesia.

For the RSPO, he continued, Gapki carried out several voluntary initiatives. Here, GAPKI leaves it to members to see the importance and urgency of implementing the RSPO.

"Because if we look at sustainability, there are actually four pillars, including being economically viable, socio-cultural, and environmentally friendly. The basis for all of that is the laws and regulations. At RSPO and ISPO we see that these items exist. But with emphasis, detail, With different complexities, we continue to encourage GAPKI member companies who feel there is a need besides ISPO to implement other certification systems. We encourage them," said Bambang.

Deputy Director of Market Transformation (Indonesia) at RSPO, M. Windrawan Inantha said, of the 5,312 RSPO members, the RSPO has only been able to certify 19 percent of the total volume of palm oil in the world. "There are 4.6 million hectares certified worldwide," said Windrawan.

He added that the 19 percent figure in the world is the same as the same figure in Indonesia. This is because Indonesia is the largest producer of palm oil in the world.

However, Windrawan admits that the development of the sustainable palm oil industry in Indonesia is quite encouraging, especially with the Presidential Instruction Number 6 of 2019 concerning the National Action Plan for Sustainable Oil Palm Plantations (RAN-KSP) 2019-2024.

"The president's instructions that give orders to ministries, institutions that have ties to the palm oil industry to do some homework priorities in the form of Presidential Instructions. So it's very strong," said Windrawan.