‘SUSTAIN’ Palm Oil Alliance Welcomes New Associate Members to its Blockchain Solution to Drive Sustainable Practices Across Supply Chains

January 17, 2020

SINGAPORE, 16 January 2020 – SUSTAIN (Sustainability Assurance & Innovation Alliance), the palm oil alliance blockchain solution formed to improve traceability to palm oil production areas and accelerate the implementation of No Deforestation, No Peat and No Exploitation (NDPE) policies across complex supply chains, welcomed two new associate members – Germany-based global sustainability certification system, International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC), and global commodity bank from the Netherlands, ABN AMRO.

The new associate members join the growing industry alliance which already counts among its membership such industry leaders such as Neste, Kao Corporation, Asian Agri and Apical, along with facilitation team CORE (Proforest and Daemeter) and technology partner SAP.

Sharing his perspective on why it was important to support initiatives such as SUSTAIN, Andreas Feige, Managing Director of ISCC said “Traceability is absolutely key for implementing No Deforestation, No Peat and No Exploitation policies. As a sustainability standard requesting no-deforestation and fully traceable supply chains, we value SUSTAIN’s emphasis on using the latest blockchain technology to improve traceability in the industry and support sustainability efforts.”

Gregory Vandeler, Asia Pacific Head of Agri Commodities, ABN AMRO, said that working with others in an alliance such as SUSTAIN will help move the industry forward. “As a commodity bank that supports sustainable palm oil exclusively, we are delighted to contribute to SUSTAIN’s proposition as the sector-wide consortium that can take our shared sustainability interests to the next level with high standards in traceability. ABN AMRO is eager to share its global expertise in international financing, sustainability and blockchain solutions with SUSTAIN. We hope our participation as the first financial institution in SUSTAIN paves the way for further membership, as we work towards accelerating a needed sustainability shift,” he said.

Remarking on its additional members, SUSTAIN co-chair and APICAL Sustainability Director Bremen Yong says, “It’s a pleasure to welcome the new associate members to SUSTAIN. The alliance is not just about building another traceability data collection tool, analytics or dashboard. The key focus of SUSTAIN is collaborating and aligning efforts to solve landscape-level concerns across the full supply chain from plantation to storefront by leveraging cutting-edge technology.”
“Our alliance continues to achieve steady progress towards leveraging the most advanced technology to drive sustainable practices across the complex palm oil supply chain. It is critical that our alliance continues to grow its membership with the industry’s most influential players to establish a common blockchain-based platform for palm oil that will further our sustainability commitments and continue to address stakeholder questions and concerns.”

Since the alliance’s launch in September 2018, SUSTAIN has embarked on a journey to focus on aligning traceability definitions and chain of custody requirements; conducting supplier engagement, data collection and validation activities; identifying user types and mapping requirements; establishing user buy-ins and integration with existing traceability tools; as well as establishing data sharing protocols and completing two pilot projects.

In this Phase I: Formation of SUSTAIN and Traceability (proof of concept and pilot), the collaboration has generated significant interest among additional stakeholders including national government ministries in South East Asia that promote sustainability and environmental management.

SUSTAIN associate members are organisations which formally joined the alliance after 5 November 2018. The new associate members will co-operate with existing SUSTAIN members to work towards a common goal of achieving sustainability assurance using technological innovations that will collect and verify data, monitor and communicate supply chain risk and progress of NDPE policy compliance and improve supply chain transparency through a mutual effort to strengthen palm oil traceability.

About SUSTAIN

SUSTAIN is an initiative that brings together relevant stakeholders to collaboratively drive innovation in addressing landscape-level sustainability issues across the palm oil supply chain. The objectives of SUSTAIN are to improve sustainability assurance by using technological innovations to collect data, and monitor, verify and communicate supply chain risk and progress of NDPE policy compliance. SUSTAIN aims to leverage on blockchain technology to increase supplier and smallholder inclusion into the supply chain of palm oil and avoid duplication of effort and resources in supplier engagement and traceability data gathering. For more information, please visit the SUSTAIN website.

For any enquiries, please contact:

SUSTAIN Secretariat: Ms Shirley Wong

Tel:+603-2785 8642
E-mail: KamFoong_Wong@apicalgroup.com
Address: Level 6, Tower 2, Avenue 5,
Bangsar South City,
No 8, Jalan Kerinchi,
59200 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia