Collaborative sustainability projects in Southeast Asia
Alongside several other global brands, Neste, as well as Daemeter, Proforest and the Siak government continued to cooperate in the Siak Pelalawan Landscape Programme. This program is designed to have a large-scale transformative sustainability impact in the regions in Indonesia. The program has helped protect forests, peat and biodiversity and support sustainability performance of smallholder farmers.
The Siak-Pelalawan Landscape Project (SPLP) involving a coalition of companies – Cargill, Danone, Golden Agri Resources, L'Oréal (joined in May) Musim Mas, Neste, PepsiCo, and Unilever – as well as Daemeter, Proforest, and the Siak government, continued in 2021. The project aims for a large-scale transformative sustainability impact in the Siak region in Indonesia through developing deforestation-free supply chains for multiple commodities, such as palm oil.
Progress in 2021
In 2021, efforts have been made at the village engagement level as these smallholders are the crucial component to the success of the initiative in this landscape. Various training conducted at the targeted 7 villages such as best management practices of oil palm in peatland, fire management, oil palm good agricultural practices and nature positive farming at the village level with support from HCVRN. 8 new villages have been selected and validated by local stakeholders and the coalition for inclusion. Village facilitators are recruited, trained and deployed in each of the villages.
In addition, key stakeholder and government engagement includes coordinating meetings with the Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs, Siak as well as the Pelalawan district Governments. It is vital in a multi-stakeholder platform to facilitate communication between district government and village teams, mill teams, and social dialogue teams including the acceleration of Cultivation Registration Letter (STDB) process, training and webinar arrangement, and surveys.
Progress in 2020
In 2020, a webinar was organized for six mills in Siak to introduce Siak Hijau (Green Siak). Another one was organized for more than 20 mills in Pelalawan to introduce the District Action Plan and the project. There are approximately 50 palm oil mills and a number of fresh fruit bunch (FFB) suppliers in the districts of Siak and Pelalawan.
The coalition kick-started various village-level engagements as key issues or ‘entry points’ for each village are identified ranging from land conflicts to problems related to fires. The project introduced seven village facilitators and one coordinator in Siak and Pelalawan. Village facilitators have received practical training on peatland management and restoration, land use mapping, gender issues, and village governance.
Conservation opportunities are combined with village engagement workstreams to allow direct engagement with the right local stakeholders. There is alignment with Earthworm Foundation for such an opportunity in Tasik Betung village (buffer zone of Giam Siak Kecil Nature Reserve). Other key work streams in the five-year program running from 2020 to 2024 include social risk in palm oil plantation and multi-stakeholder platforms.
Neste also continued serving as a steering committee member of the SUSTAIN initiative, bringing together oil palm growers, processors, users, sustainability experts, and technology partners to collaboratively drive innovation in addressing region-specific sustainability issues. The initiative, for example, aims to develop a blockchain-based sustainability assurance platform to facilitate the collection and sharing of sustainability and traceability information.
The initiative continued with ABN Amro and certification body ISCC joining as new associate members in January 2020. More information from the sustainalliance website: https://www.sustainalliance.org/
