Shared Responsibility Working Group
To reach scale and sustainability, there is an urgency for commitment to collective action through shared responsibility and accountability. As such, the RSPO Shared Responsibility Working Group (SRWG) was established in May 2020 to work on the practical implementation of Shared Responsibility requirements, as detailed in the RSPO Board of Governors (BoG) endorsed ‘Shared Responsibility and Implementation’ document (31 October 2019). This document provides the definition of Shared Responsibility and the procedures applicable to selected non-producer ordinary members and also included the outline for an implementation mechanism for the reporting of SR requirements, built on existing RSPO systems and mechanisms.
Background
The concept of Shared Responsibility (SR) has been discussed and agreed upon for a number of years across RSPO membership. While the RSPO Principles and Criteria (P&C) are applicable to the production of sustainable palm oil, clause 3.2 of the RSPO Code of Conduct for Members, applicable to all members, requires: “Members to whom the P&C do not apply directly will implement parallel standards relevant to their own organisation, which cannot be lower than those set out in the P&C.”
A Shared Responsibility Task Force (SRTF) was formed in March 2019 to define more explicitly what SR means, i.e. the SR requirements, and outline what implementation would look like. They developed a set of shared requirements which are the same across all membership categories, but for each category, different actions may be required to achieve the shared goal. Additionally, some requirements may not be applicable to some membership categories due to the nature of the requirement in question (e.g. buying of CSPO, which is not applicable to the NGO and Financial Institution Categories).
This TF developed the draft of the ‘Shared Responsibility and Implementation’ document, which was later endorsed by the BoG and the TF has now been disbanded. Documents from the SRTF can be found here.
The topics covered by SR are as follows:


Role of the RSPO Shared Responsibility Working Group (SRWG)
Over the course of 2 years, the SRWG members will be working with the support of RSPO Secretariat. In Year 1, this includes working with a technical facilitation team (Proforest and LiSeed) on the development of procedural and/ or guidance documents, the incentives and sanctions system, as well as the resourcing plan for transformation.
The SRWG will regularly monitor activities and outputs through performance monitoring and Key Performance Indicators, as well as review the implementation of Shared Responsibility towards the end of Year 1. This end of year review (evaluation) will be used to make adjustments and recommendations for the following years (Year 2 and 3).
Every year, the SRWG will review the progress on SR requirements, identify barriers and issues, as well as specifically review the CSPO supply and demand projections. They will also propose a projection-based percentage figure for the uptake of CSPO volumes for supply chain membership categories to the BoG for Year 2 and Year 3.
Composition of the RSPO SRWG
Co-chairs |
Natasha Schwarzbach - PepsiCo
James Whitehead - Forest Peoples Programme
|
Members
Name |
Substantive |
Alternate |
Growers
(MY, IN, RoW and SHSC rep) |
Lee Kuan Yee - Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad
Lim Sian Choo - Bumitama Agri Ltd |
Ian Orell - Sime Darby/ NBPOL
Mariama Diallo - SIAT SA |
Processors & Traders |
Ben Vreeburg - Bunge Limited |
Joshua Lim - Wilmar International Limited |
Retailers |
Julian Walker-Palin - Retailers Palm Oil Group |
Miho Yamazaki - AEON Co, Ltd. |
Consumer Goods Manufacturers |
Natasha Schwarzbach - PepsiCo |
Girish Deshpande - The Procter & Gamble Company |
Banks and Investors |
Catarina Vivalva - BNP Paribas |
Ghislaine Nadaud - ABN Amro |
Environmental NGO |
Ilka Peterson - WWF International |
Harjinder Kler - HUTAN Kinabatangan Orang-utan Conservation Programme |
Social NGO |
James Whitehead - Forest Peoples Programme |
Nursanna Marpaung - Federasi Serikat Buruh Kehutanan, Perkebunan dan Pertanian Serikat Buruh Sejahtera Indonesia (Hukatan) |