Bureau Veritas to offer RSPO certification service

BUREAU VERITAS can now offer North America-based Chain of Custody (COC) services under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) program.

RSPO is a global, multi-stakeholder initiative on sustainable palm oil. Members of RSPO and participants in its activities come from many different backgrounds, including plantation companies, manufacturers and retailers of oil palm products, environmental NGOs and social NGOs, and from many countries that produce or use oil palm products.

Per RSPO, palm oil is used in more than half of supermarket packaged items today and approximately 50,000 companies use it along the supply chain. The problem is that in some regions, oil palm cultivation has caused – and continues to cause – deforestation. This means that land, which has never been touched by man or housed protected species and biodiversity, was cleared in order to be converted into palm oil plantations. Further, some palm oil plantations were developed without consulting local communities over the use of their land, some have forcibly displaced people from their land and violations of workers' rights to fair payment and safe working conditions have also occurred.

With Bureau Veritas' RSPO certification service, processors, wholesalers and retailers can be assured that any products using palm oil have been responsibly produced – and quickly identify and resolve any supply chain sustainability problems that pose a threat to their reputation.

Bureau Veritas is also employing new technologies, such as satellite mapping, that compliments its certification process and compels palm oil players to be more transparent about their commitment to sustainability. Satellite mapping allows not just members of the RSPO, but also the world's consumers of palm oil to visually affirm palm oil companies are abiding by the sustainability practices they preach and being held accountable when not.

"The use of palm oil is rapidly growing in everyday items such as processed foods, cosmetics and biofuels. Therefore, the manufacturers of these products have an accountability to use certified palm oil products that are responsibly produced," said David Vigil, Director of Sales and Marketing. "Bureau Veritas is proud to be working with the RSPO and help ensure our customers in North America only use responsibly sourced sustainable palm oil products."