APOA, CPOPC and Solidaridad work together to accelerate sustainable palm oil supply chain

Signed in Mumbai, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) would focus on India and South Asia, the organisations said on 25 September.

“At a time when food security and price stability are front of mind for families and business across South Asia, this partnership gives producers and consumers a formal table to strengthen collaboration and foster mutual understanding in addressing shared challenges,” APOA chairman Atul Chaturvedi said.

APOA brings together vegetable oil associations from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal under the umbrella of India’s Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA).

As part of the MoU, the organisations said they would seek practical alignment and mutual recognition between national sustainability frameworks including Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO), Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) and Indian Palm Oil Sustainability (IPOS) Framework while respecting each country’s laws and regulatory competencies.

The collaboration would also prioritise regenerative practices, they said.

To strengthen stability and predictability of supply for more than 1.5bn consumers in South Asia, the parties would promote traceable, smallholder-inclusive and NDPE-compliant (No Deforestation, No Peat and No Exploitation) sourcing, with pilots using Solidaridad’s SoliTrace traceability tool and remote-sensing tools for mill-to-market visibility.

“Consumers in India and across South Asia deserve edible oils that are affordable, traceable and responsibly produced,” Dr Shatadru Chattopadhayay, managing director of Solidaridad Asia, said.

“Our role is to ensure that sustainability is practical for producers and meaningful for buyers.”

As part of the initiative, APOA would represent the interests of Asia’s major consumer market; CPOPC – the intergovernmental organisation of palm oil producing countries founded by Indonesia and Malaysia and joined by other producer nations – would lead on producer priorities; and international civil society organisation Solidaridad would act as the technical sustainability partner, providing technical support on standards alignment, digital traceability and smallholder inclusion, with a focus on evidence-based, data-driven solutions such as SoliTrace.

Tags: palm oil, Sustainability, supply chain, smallholders, The Asian Palm Oil Council, the Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries, Solidaridad Network Asia Limited