Singapore – Despite significant progress in working on suppliers that engage in deforestation, a halt in purchasing does not seem to be a solution to provide real protection to the Leuser Ecosystem. Musim Mas is in discussion with the industry and its stakeholders to rethink on the solutions for forest conservation.
A report published by an Indonesian Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO ), Greenomics, called for a better solution to ensure the production of sustainable Palm Oil that is deforestation-free.
As part of the Group’s commitment to a sustainable supply chain, Musim Mas sought the inputs of stakeholders about specific situations such as the Leuser Ecosystem. This consultative process focused on supply chains that are not aligned to the policy and improved the verification procedures, resulting in various levels of actions including ground-level verification and a halt in purchasing from some of these suppliers. The Group also aligned the internal guidelines and fine-tuned the internal decision-making process to support the execution of the Sustainability Policy.
Despite having stopped buying from specific suppliers since May 2015, external stakeholders have requested for the Group to provide greater scrutiny to the ongoing forest clearance by the Group’s third-party suppliers.
With a supply base of 446 mills across Indonesia, monitoring suppliers on a weekly basis can be challenging. Musim Mas would like to tackle this issue at a landscape-level that is beyond the scope of one company.
Perhaps the industry will need to rethink how landscape-level approaches involving the different stakeholders can help to monitor these mills and their land areas to ensure no deforestation. Musim Mas believes that the Indonesia Palm Oil Pledge (IPOP) platform can be part of the solution. The Group will work with the corporate IPOP signatories, making sure that the Group’s measures will help to conserve the Leuser Ecosystem.
For more information, please contact:
Carolyn Lim
Corporate Communications
media@musimmas.com
+65 6576 4770
