• Inaugural Meeting of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (includes speeches, proceedings, press coverage)

• Program

• Presentations

• Working Group

Inaugural Meeting of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil
Kuala Lumpur, 21-22 August 2003

The Inaugural Meeting of the Roundtable brought together over 200 delegates from industry and interest groups from 16 countries around the world. As a first major step towards promoting sustainably produced palm oil, there was consensus among participants that a common code of conduct and practice has to be developed, agreed upon and implemented. It should cover, in particular, management criteria for plantations, forest conversion, and land tenure in the establishment of new plantations, as well as procurement methods and verification processes.

All participants of the Roundtable and other stakeholders were encouraged to sign the Statement of Intent (SOI) to actively participate in a process to achieve sustainability in the palm oil sector. Signatories were expected to support the continuation of the Roundtable process and implementation of respective projects related to sustainable palm oil production. As of 1 April 2004, more than 40 companies and organizations have signed the SOI and are committed to actively promote sustainable palm oil.

Program

Venue: Mutiara Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Working Group

On 20 August 2003, there was a Working Group meeting. On the basis of two discussion papers produced by ProForest, the Working Group identified questions for discussion at the Roundtable.