Announcement on applicability of Generic P&C 2013 for audits after 1st May 2015

The RSPO Secretariat is pleased to announce that all audits on mills and supply bases under the RSPO scheme in countries without endorsed National Interpretations (NI) must be conducted against the requirement of the generic P&C 2013 (https://rspo.org/resources/key-documents/certification/rspo-principles-and-criteria).  This applies to all initial, recertification and surveillance audits.

This decision was made based on the fact that as of end April 2015, only the NI for Malaysia has been endorsed by the RSPO Board of Governors. NI’s for other countries are either under review by the RSPO Secretariat and Standard & Certification Standing Committee or being prepared by the National Interpretation Task Force (NITF).  The generic P&C 2013 is to be used for the audit until the availability of the endorsed country NI.

The RSPO Secretariat is also reviewing the guidance for smallholders. Until the revision is complete and the revised document is endorsed, the smallholder operation is expected to adhere to the existing smallholder guidance requirements (https://rspo.org/resources/key-documents/certification/rspo-smallholders-group-certification).

For further clarifications, please contact Salahudin Yaacob, Technical Director of RSPO, at [email protected] or Jan Van Driel, Head of Certification of RSPO at [email protected].