WWF Report Gives High Marks To RSPO 2018 Standards

A new assessment published by WWF gives the most recent version of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) standard adopted in November 2018 high marks with regard to its potential to achieve environmental and social impacts at scale, with an improvement of 8% on the score awarded to the 2013 version of the standard. The report highlights potential for RSPO standard to deliver benefits at scale - though continuous improvement and robust implementation still essential to scheme’s success. The study also highlights room for improvement in several areas including those related to labour rights, indigenous communities, and chain of custody.


Conducted by independent assessors unaffiliated with WWF or the RSPO, the study used WWF’s Certification Assessment Tool (CAT) to evaluate the RSPO Principle and Criteria (P&C) 2018 against 160 questions based on WWF’s requirements and ambitions for certification schemes.


Overall, the 2018 version of the RSPO standard scored 92%, a marked increase compared to the 84% score allotted to the 2013 version of the RSPO standard. In the section of the report looking at the RSPO’s systems and governance, the 2018 RSPO standard scored 94%, an improvement of 10% compared to the previous assessment. Meanwhile, on environmental and social aspects, the 2018 scheme scored 12 percentage points higher than the 2013 standard with a score of 90%. For further information, please refer to the attached media release and the full report.