Cargill Smallholders Receive European Certification for the Supply of Sustainable Biofuels
(Equities.com) Smallholders at Cargill’s palm oil plantation, PT Hindoli in South Sumatra, Indonesia, recently became the one of the first smallholders to receive official certification for sustainable palm oil supply for biofuels, according to the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) standards within the European Union (EU). ISCC is a certification scheme approved by the EU to cover the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED). This means that Cargill is able to provide its customers with palm oil destined for energy applications that are working towards compliance with the RED which is being written into law by EU member countries.
The ISCC-EU certified smallholders are members of the Mukti Jaya smallholder cooperative and are participants of PT Hindoli’s plasma scheme. The Mukti Jaya cooperative is also the first of 17 smallholder cooperatives in PT Hindoli to be certified.
PT Hindoli’s plasma scheme stems from the Indonesian government’s transmigration program in the 1980s, where Indonesians were relocated from densely populated areas in Java to plantation areas in Sumatra and Kalimantan. They were subsequently trained and developed to become smallholders.
…The ISCC is a certification system that promotes responsible farming by allowing a differentiation of sustainable products from non-sustainable ones, including the greenhouse gas emissions at the different stages of the value chain.
This latest smallholder ISCC-EU certification comes on the heels of PT Hindoli’s own certification upgrade from ISCC-Germany to ISCC-EU, further demonstrating Cargill’s commitment to producing palm oil in an environmentally sustainable and socially responsible manner.
…In addition to adhering to global standards, Cargill has its own policies in place for responsible palm production, including commitments to not plant on high conservation value forests (HCVF); to not develop new plantations on deep peat land or land that would threaten biodiversity; and a strict no-burn policy for land preparation. READ MORE
