The RSPO aims to leverage its impact in making sustainable palm oil the norm. Aside from the conventional approach to certification where the focus is on the mill and its supply base, RSPO is looking to upscale this approach to a jurisdictional level. In the context of sustainable oil, this will involve the certification of the production and processing of oil palm products at the jurisdictional level that uses a particular model of jurisdictional landscape development.
Due to the scale and complexity of this approach, the proposed system shall be credible and robust enough to enable the whole jurisdiction to comply with RSPO standards. Hence, the establishment of a Jurisdictional Working Group (JWG) was endorsed by the Board of Governors in March 2018.
The Working Group had it first meeting in May 2018 in Kuala Lumpur, to discuss the action plan including:
- Providing high-level guidance on all work related to the jurisdictional approach to RSPO certification, focused on the development of an approach centered around local applicability, acceptance by the market, and pragmatic development over time;
- Ensuring alignment and information exchange with current JA initiatives to identify best and worst practices;
- Striving for JA pilots to provide feedback, and, as much as possible implement the guidance developed by the WG.
In July 2021, the Jurisdictional Working Group produced the RSPO Jurisdictional Approach Piloting Framework document and was endorsed by the Standard Standing Committee. This document establishes the requirements for a jurisdictional certification and forms the basis for the development of certification system documents of jurisdictional approach.
