PUBLICATIONS

Presidential Regulation No. 44 Year 2020 on the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) Certification System was signed on March 13, 2020, with goals to increase market acceptance and competitiveness of Indonesia's palm oil products, as well as reduce GHG emissions. A marked change is that ISPO certification is now mandatory for all palm oil plantation business actors, including companies and individual growers/farmers, although farmers are granted a five-year "grace period". Furthermore, the Regulation outlines 7 new ISPO Principles, including the addition of transparency, and grants ISPO Certification Bodies the direct authority to issue certificates without the ISPO Committee's approval.

While progressive elements exist, such as the Certification Body's independence and the inclusion of independent monitors in the ISPO Committee, the new system's effectiveness cannot be fully assessed until further operational regulations, particularly the Ministerial Regulation on ISPO Principles, Criteria, and Indicators (PCI), are issued. Civil society concerns regarding issues like deforestation, peatland destruction, and indigenous people/workers' rights remain, as most of the principles are similar to the previous set, with the exception of the new transparency principle. To ensure the new standard's legitimacy, recommendations include immediately publishing the draft Ministerial Regulation on ISPO PCI and actively seeking out civil society inputs for continuous future improvements.