Golden Agri Sets Four Year Goal for Full Traceability
Noting that traceability is key to sustainability, Golden Agri- Resources (GAR) announced an ambitious four-year plan to achieve 100 percent traceability of seven million tons of palm oil through 489 mills back to its point of origin plantation by 2020.
“We led the way in committing to delink palm oil production from deforestation in 2011 and hope that we can now set a new example of how to improve engagement, productivity and sustainability across the industry,” said Agus Purnomo, MD for sustainability and strategic stakeholder engagement, GAR in a company statement.
Under the two-phase plan, GAR is targeting 100 percent traceability for its 44 owned mills, which account for 40% of the group’s palm oil supply, by 2017 and 100 traceability for independent third party mills by 2020.
The pilot test of the initiative will involve GAR tracing its palm oil back through a single GAR owned mill and a single independent mill. The lessons learned through the tracing of smallholders through chain of custody documents and verification will provide the group with a method to be applied on a wider scale to its remaining facilities. It will also indicate to the company which supplier need to improve their practices.
“We are aware that this will be a challenging endeavor [sic], but as a business, we recognise [sic] the long term benefits that this mapping exercise will bring. We will be meeting customer demands for a traceable product and at the same time we will be playing our part in making our industry more sustainable,” notes Hendrikus H. Nauli, director of PT Sugih Riesta Jaya, a third party GAR supplier.
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