Accelerating Empowerment
in Sustainability

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

• Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO),
• International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC)
• Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) Certification Scheme, the national scheme in Malaysia for oil palm plantations in the country
• Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO)

The progress of achieving full certification in all our plantation can be viewed in our Palm Oil Dashboard.

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 programmes.

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).

• At IOI, Social Impact Assessments (SIAs) are key to managing the social impacts of our operations on communities, workers, and stakeholders. We use SIA findings to guide mitigation measures, community initiatives, and long-term engagement plans. As part of this process, we hold annual stakeholder meetings to encourage open dialogue, gather feedback, and strengthen relationships with local communities.
• 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.
• Provide good accessibility to the community through regular road maintenance, safety and awareness signboard etc.
• 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.
• 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).

• 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.
• Conduct environmental and social impact assessments (EIA & SIA), HCV and HCS assessments prior to land development. As part of our commitment to IOISP, sites identified as HCV areas will be set aside and managed.
• Respect land tenure rights of indigenous and local communities in land use plan by practicing Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).
• RSPO Best Management Practices (BMP) for peatland management and drainability assessment conducted prior to replanting for existing plantation on peat.
• Research to improve oil palm yields and focus on restoring and maintaining healthy, nutrient-rich soil.
• Undertaking precision agriculture, good agronomic and regenerative agriculture practices to increase efficiency on land utilisation for higher productivity, reduction of chemical fertiliser and pesticide usage, resulting in lower GHG emissions.

• A moratorium on deforestation and new planting on peat has been implemented since 2016.