Recent efforts made by civil society organizations devoted to
increasing the level of transparency and corporate accountability of
agricultural companies around the world are clear evidence of the maturity
and robustness resulting from those big leaps that have taken place in the
sector, which are then put in practice via POIG and RSPO Next standards for
oil palm cultivation. There is a conceptual similarity: an initial standard
of compliance, followed by operational and governance changes, which is then
met by the industry as a whole, while the period of knowledge elapses and
becomes a market standard. At the moment the companies are committed to the
standard, the bar rises somewhat with the purpose of driving the industry
towards an ideal that is under continuous improvement.
With this in mind, in 2014, DAABON together with other leading companies of
the palm oil sector and social and environmental NGOs, proposed a permanent
innovation space in order to show the world successes and failures in the
implementation of new policies, procedures and interactions in the field of
sustainability that may arise from social responsibility dynamics. POIG
(Palm Oil Innovation Group) is a group that contributes with knowledge and a
receiver of procedures that stem from scientifically advanced discussions.
In 2016 the RSPO Board of Governors approved an additional standard called
RSPO Next, using the social and environmental commitment of producers,
investors and processors, that is reached after a consensus that followed
intense debate. It is worth noting that it is at this point where the
difference lies in terms of approach: the first being an innovation
collective for the adoption of best practices and the second consisting of
agreed upon proposals that are gathered by way of the industry´s
experience.
However, it must be emphasized that even though POIG is a verifiable
proposal, it always follows an RSPO certification given that the commitment
is to strengthen the standard fully adopted by the industry. These voluntary
opportunities do not exclusively assess per se agricultural activity, but
the overall business system. The aim is to also make visible those
operations that have an incidence to a lesser extent in the corporate
ecosystem. After receiving the POIG verification in 2012 we have engaged in
a continuous improvement process and it was with great pride that we
received the first RSPO Next audit in January for all of our operations,
those of independent parties and small producers, with the purpose of giving
the best of the DAABON Family to households worldwide.
