The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification process, which is intended to improve governance of palm oil plantations, was criticized by the Indonesian non-profit organization Transformation for Justice (TuK), which considered it to have the potential to be a form of greenwashing.
According to Linda Rosalina, Executive Director of TuK Indonesia, for more than 20 years the RSPO has been established and has failed to fulfill its mission to make the palm oil industry sustainable.
TuK Indonesia provides four notes for the existence of an RSPO certificate including:
- The RSPO is considered not to have resolved community cases such as those experienced by the Kerunang and Entapang indigenous communities in Sanggau Regency, West Kalimantan.
- Issues related to plasma obligations are still ignored by RSPO members
- Legal adequacy is not a focus for RSPO members. The PT BAS case is an example of a company that does not have complete permits and to date the company does not have business use rights (HGU).
- Based on the three previous notes, Linda said, the RSPO has not been able to contribute to improving the governance of oil palm plantations in Indonesia.
One of the problems faced by the RSPO is rejecting complaints from residents of Kerunang and Entapang in West Kalimantan who have been in conflict with PT Mitra Austral Sejahtera (MAS) from Malaysia for 11 years on the grounds of lack of evidence which is considered very inhumane by TuK.
“Instead of taking action against its members who carry out land grabbing, the RSPO instead ignores and ignores the evidence brought by the community in the form of customary law on village,” he said.
Apart from that, there was a case involving residents of Biru Maju Village in Central Kalimantan who were in conflict with PT Buana Artha Sejahtera (BAS), which had been there for 18 years. BAS continues to deny the development of plasma plantations for the community. Although, there are regulations that every company that obtains a permit is obliged to build a plasma plantation for the community.
Meanwhile, Mahatma Windrawan Inantha, Deputy Director for Market Transportation at RSPO, said that his party always ensures that every time they provide a certificate it is done correctly, and stated that the potential for greenwashing is very small.
On the other hand, the party is very open and accepts input from all stakeholders so that criticism and suggestions can be studied and discussed.
Responding to criticism from TuK, the RSPO emphasized that the criticism leveled by the RSPO must be seen on a case by case basis and cannot be generalized that all RSPOs have the potential for greenwashing.
