Roundtable on Sustainable Oil: Driving Change at the Source
Chelsea Wellmer serves as an Assistant Manager at the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a global non-profit organisation committed to advancing sustainability within the palm oil industry. Working within a network of over 5,000 member organisations across the supply chain, she supports RSPO’s collaborative efforts to promote responsible production and industry-wide alignment around sustainable standards.
DeliveryRank offers an exclusive interview.
RSPO has developed the prisma platform to enhance transparency and compliance. How is this tool transforming the way members interact with the certification process and manage their data?
The launch of prisma by RSPO marks a major step forward in how the palm oil industry approaches certification, traceability, and compliance. Standing for Palm Resource Information and Sustainability Management, prisma is RSPO’s new digital platform that brings together certification, trade, and traceability processes into a single, integrated system.
Through prisma, RSPO Members can now upload, verify, and transmit data in real time across the global supply chain, creating a seamless link between certified producers, traders, and buyers. This not only simplifies certification management but also strengthens risk assessment, due diligence, and regulatory compliance, particularly in the context of emerging requirements such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
By allowing members to share rich sustainability performance data alongside their physical products, prisma provides importers, regulators, and consumers with a transparent and verifiable picture of the environmental and social impact behind RSPO Certified palm products. In essence, it enables members to tell a more complete story of the sustainability embedded in their supply chains, reinforcing trust, accountability, and confidence in Certified Sustainable Palm Oil worldwide.
RSPO supports smallholders through initiatives like training programs, engagement platforms, and dedicated funds. What are some of the biggest barriers smallholders face in achieving certification?
Smallholders are at the heart of RSPO’s mission, yet they continue to face significant barriers in achieving certification. The most pressing challenges include limited access to finance and technical assistance. Many operate on tight margins and lack the upfront capital needed to invest in better farm management, monitoring, and compliance systems.
Land tenure uncertainty is another obstacle, particularly in parts of Latin America where smallholders often farm without formal titles or under overlapping legal frameworks, which complicates their ability to demonstrate compliance. In contrast, in Southeast Asia, national frameworks and stronger policy support have helped accelerate smallholder certification. In Malaysia and Indonesia alone, smallholder production represents roughly 40% of the total oil palm plantation area, underscoring the importance of supporting these producers to adopt good agricultural practices, produce more oil using less land, and improve their livelihoods while protecting forests and biodiversity. Smallholders in Thailand manage over 85% of the country's oil palm plantations, amounting to over one million hectares of land.
A further challenge, common across regions, is the lack of organization among independent smallholders. Because they cannot be certified individually, they must form groups led by a manager who ensures compliance with RSPO’s Standards. Establishing and maintaining such structures can be complex, particularly where existing local organizations are weak or fragmented.
To address these structural and regional challenges, RSPO has developed several targeted initiatives. The Smallholder Support Fund (RSSF) allocates an important portion of the income from the trade of Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO) to help smallholders cover certification costs. As of 2023, the RSSF has committed US$5.3 million to support 140 projects and 57,516 farmers across 14 countries, an increase of 33 projects and 8,526 farmers from the previous year.
The RSPO also launched The Smallholder Trainer Academy (STA) builds local training capacity by providing practical tools and agricultural best practices, while the Independent Smallholder (ISH) Standard offers a phased approach that allows smallholders to progressively meet RSPO’s certification requirements. Additionally, the RSPO Smallholder Engagement Platform (RSEP) connects smallholders with potential partners, funding, and technical resources to support their journey toward sustainability.
As of December 2024, more than 145,000 smallholders across 14 countries have become RSPO certified. This includes scheme smallholders certified through mills under the RSPO Principles and Criteria (P&C), and independent smallholders certified under the RSPO ISH Standard. Indonesia leads with 77% of all certified smallholders (83,511 scheme; 28,822 ISH), followed by Papua New Guinea (nearly 13,000 scheme smallholders) and Thailand (over 9,000 ISH).
Together, these initiatives make certification more accessible and inclusive, enabling smallholders across regions to improve productivity, gain access to new markets, and strengthen their livelihoods, while contributing to the global transition toward sustainable and deforestation-free palm oil.
The RSPO’s Interpretation Forum provides a venue for members and certification bodies to clarify standards. How does the Forum influence the implementation of certification rules and address real-world complexities faced by members?
The RSPO Interpretation Forum (RIF) is an online platform created to bring clarity, consistency, and transparency to the implementation of RSPO’s certification standards. It serves as an official channel where RSPO Members, Accredited Certification Bodies, and Accreditation Bodies can submit questions about the interpretation of key normative documents, including the RSPO Principles and Criteria (P&C), the RSPO Independent Smallholder Standard, and the RSPO Supply Chain Certification Standard.
Each query submitted through the platform is carefully reviewed by the RSPO Secretariat’s Certification Unit, often in consultation with other technical divisions. When necessary, complex cases are escalated to RSPO’s Standing Committees to ensure that the final interpretation upholds both the integrity of the sustainability framework and the practical realities faced by members on the ground. Once approved, these interpretations are published openly, ensuring that all stakeholders can access the same harmonized guidance.
In practice, the RIF has become a bridge between standard-setting and implementation, helping members navigate real-world challenges such as differing regional regulations, language barriers, and operational constraints. It not only improves the auditability and credibility of certification outcomes but also reinforces alignment and trust across the global RSPO network, ensuring that sustainability commitments are consistently and effectively translated into action.
Annex 6 of the Supply Chain Certification Standard governs the use of oleochemicals and derivatives, including how mass balance rules are applied. Can you walk us through how these rules are implemented in practice and the challenges industries face in complying with them?
Annex 6 of the RSPO Supply Chain Certification Standard (SCCS) was created to improve transparency in how oleochemicals and their derivatives are handled across the palm oil supply chain. It works alongside existing modules that ensure certified palm oil is properly traced and balanced through the system.
In simple terms, Annex 6 helps companies apply “mass balance” rules, a system that allows certified and non-certified materials to be mixed, as long as the overall volume of certified material is accurately tracked. These rules ensure that sustainability claims remain credible and consistent as products move downstream through the supply chain.
The annex also clarifies how companies can transfer certification claims between related oleochemical products, such as from a fatty acid to a fatty alcohol, under strict one-to-one conversion rules. The same principles apply whether the products come from palm oil or palm kernel oil.
As part of RSPO’s continuous effort to strengthen its standards, the RSPO Supply Chain Certification Standard is currently under review, a process that began in February 2025. The next version is expected to be submitted for endorsement in 2026. A Technical Committee established by the Review Task Force is working to enhance the clarity and structure of Annex 6, ensuring the guidance remains practical, relevant, and aligned with evolving market needs.
RSPO members are required to submit a mill list of supplying mills, regardless of volume or certification status. How has this transparency requirement impacted accountability across the supply chain, and what practical difficulties do members still encounter in maintaining and publishing accurate data?
Transparency is a cornerstone of the RSPO’s commitment to a sustainable palm oil sector. By requiring members to disclose their supplying mills, RSPO has significantly strengthened visibility and traceability across the supply chain, helping stakeholders better understand sourcing practices and progress toward sustainability goals.
As with any global reporting initiative, maintaining comprehensive and up-to-date data can be complex, given the scale and diversity of operations involved. RSPO continues to support its members through guidance, standardized reporting tools, and engagement to improve data quality and ensure that transparency remains a shared responsibility across the supply chain.
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