Sustainability

IOI subscribes to both international and national sustainability standards for its plantation operations based on the country we operate in. Example of standards that we adhere to or progressing towards are the:

1. Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO),
2. RSPO NEXT, and the
3. International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC)
4. Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) Certification Scheme, the national scheme in Malaysia for oil palm plantations in the country and
5. Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) certification for all plantation concessions in Indonesia.

The progress of achieving full certification in all our plantation can be viewed in our Palm Oil Dashboard and for details on our systems and processes please click here.

IOI has developed a systematic approach by ensuring sustainability sits at the top agenda of IOI’s management while our sustainability teams ensure that the operations implement and strictly adhere to all sustainability systems and processes, policies, practices and commitments of the Group. Aside from internal monitoring such as internal audits, external audits conducted by the certifications organisations to which we belong to, ensure that we implement our sustainability commitments. In addition, we have also conducted independent verification on the implementation of IOI’s sustainability programs.

We have systems in place for stakeholders to monitor our sustainability progress via publicly available documents (Please click the following documents for further details:- Sustainability Implementation Plan (SIP), Sustainability Progress Updates, and a list of reports from third-party assessments).

1. Frequent engagement with community leaders as well as other stakeholder meetings with neighbouring village, adjacent smallholders and other affected parties to gather information on the impacts of plantation operation to their side.
2. Provide good accessibility to the community through regular road maintenance, safety and awareness signboard etc.
3. Providing education centres within our plantations by providing schools to children of our employees and neighbouring communities as well as providing other contributions such as technical expertise, electricity, water supply, financial assistance and study tools.
4. Assessment with the community specifically to identify the HCV 5 (Sites and resources fundamental for satisfying the basic necessities of local communities or indigenous peoples, for example livelihoods, health, nutrition, and water requirements identified through engagement with these communities and indigenous peoples) and HCV 6 (Sites, resources, habitats and landscapes of global or national cultural, archaeological or historical significance, and/or of critical cultural, ecological, economic or religious/sacred importance for the traditional cultures of local communities or indigenous peoples identified through engagement with these local communities or indigenous peoples).

1. IOI practices no deforestation and protection of High Conservation Value (HCV) areas and High Carbon Stock (HCS) forests and no development of peatland regardless of depth for any new land development.
2. Conduct environmental and social impact assessments (EIA & SIA) prior to land development. As IOI subscribes to RSPO, sites identified as HCV area will be set aside and managed.
3. Respect land tenure rights of indigenous and local communities in land use plan by practicing Free, Prior and Informed Consent (“FPIC”).
4. RSPO Best Management Practices (BMP) for peatland management and drainability assessment conducted prior to replanting for existing plantation on peat.
5. Research to improve oil palm yields to reduce the reliance on land for growth.
6. Undertaking precision agriculture and good agronomic practices to increase efficiency on land utilisation for higher productivity, reduction of chemical fertiliser and pesticide usage, resulting in lower GHG emissions. Read more on our plantation’s Best Management Practices and Agronomy and Planting Material Improvement here.

1. IOI practices no deforestation and no new planting on peat within its operations since the establishment of SPOP in 2016.

IOI’s continuous improvement with respect to human and labour rights were demonstrated through its strengthened commitments, development and enhancement of policies and practices as well as via various independent labour assessments carried out since 2014. We have produced a fact sheet covering these areas that contains the following information: