Cargill becomes a TFT member

CARGILL has become a member of The Forest Trust (TFT), an international non-governmental organisation that works with companies in building responsible supply chains. The membership has been a foreseeable step for Cargill which has for some time taken its obligation toward sustainable palm oil production to heart.

In Malaysia, the company has mapped the supply chain of its palm oil refineries. From these refineries, it can now provide customers with one million tons of traceable palm oil. But the task is not over as Cargill has yet to complete the mapping of third-party suppliers in Malaysia and Indonesia.

The company has done an analysis to identify and preserve high carbon stock (HCS) forest areas (stores for carbon) at its PT Hindoli plantation in Indonesia. It has also noted high conservation value (HCV) areas which will be protected as these are attractive to biodiversity.

Palm oil, which is an edible vegetable oil derived from the fruit and kernel, has many applications outside the food industry

According to Cargill, it will share its knowledge to three business partners in Indonesia who will do their own HCS studies.

"We've learned a lot from piloting the HCS tool with TFT," said Paul Conway, vice chairman of Cargill. "We've fine-tuned the methodology and demonstrated that it is, in fact, capable of identifying valuable tracts of natural forests. Now, we're ready to apply the model elsewhere."

Cargill was among those that joined the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2004. This year, its signed the Sustainable Palm Oil Manifesto.

"We are excited to take this important next step with Cargill related to ensuring that all the palm oil they produce, buy, sell and trade globally conforms to their Policy on Sustainable Palm Oil," said TFT director Robin Barr. "It's clear from our work together thus far that Cargill takes the implementation of its policy very seriously,  and this will send a strong message to its suppliers that practices related to deforestation and exploitation must be eliminated from the palm oil industry."

Under its updated palm oil policy, Cargill pledges to build traceable and transparent palm oil supply chains for everything it produces, buys, sells and trades, including the following:

-Protection of high conservation value (HCV) and high carbon stock (HCS) areas

-No development on peat, regardless of depth

-No exploitation of the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities

Palm oil is an edible vegetable derived from the fruit and kernel of the oil palm tree. Aside from food, it has a wide range of non-food applications as well.