ASI Accreditation Update: Accreditation Deadline And Current List Of Accredited Certification Bodies

The accreditation of these 16 CBs represents a significant achievement for the RSPO scheme, and the above CBs should be congratulated for achieving full accreditation and thereby demonstrating their competence to continue offering RSPO certification under full third party verification.  12 of the above CBs were previously approved by RSPO, whilst four (Bureau Veritas Singapore, DNV, GUT Cert and Control Union, Netherlands) were new applicants as of December 2012.

The accreditation process started in 2012, when RSPO appointed Accreditation Services International (ASI) to oversee the accreditation of all Certification Bodies offering RSPO certification services, and the transfer from direct scheme owner approval to full ASI accreditation was officially launched for applications on 1 November 2012.  Thereafter a program of accreditation assessments of all previously approved CBs, including initial document review, office assessment and witness assessments for each scope applied for, was undertaken by ASI to evaluate each applicant CB’s compliance with the RSPO requirements.

Meanwhile, the accreditation process for the remaining applicant Certification Bodies continues.

The current deadline for all previously approved CBs to achieve accreditation was 30 June 2014; however, in the interest of maintaining the continued growth and operational capacity of the RSPO scheme, and at the same time ensuring that only competent and progressive CBs are allowed to offer RSPO certification going forward, the RSPO Board of Governors and ASI have agreed to allow an extension of RSPO approval for the five (previously approved) CBs beyond 30 June.

This extension was granted to all 5 CBs on the grounds of fairness, and in order to offer each of the CBs this additional opportunity to provide ASI with sufficient grounds to make a positive accreditation recommendation.

The granting of this extension is subject to each CB agreeing to follow up assessment by ASI as deemed necessary in order to verify the implementation of submitted corrective actions in practice. 

During this extension period each of the yet to be accredited CB cannot therefore carry out new certification and re-certification audits.  Similarly, the CB should not be actively marketing RSPO certification to potential new clients.  RSPO would recommend that the CB inform their existing clients of the fact that the CB is still not accredited and that any accreditation is subject to successful completion of the verification assessment described above.

ASI will advise the RSPO Secretariat on the accreditation status of each CB on a monthly basis.  CBs that have not made significant progress and reached accreditation latest by end of September 2014 will be terminated.

Together with the above ongoing accreditation process for previously approved CBs, there are also new applications received by ASI from CBs  who wish to operate under the RSPO scheme. These new applicant CBs will be subject to the same accreditation assessment process – including initial document review, office assessment and witness assessments, for each scope applied for, before an accreditation recommendation can be made.  Applications from such new CBs also serve to demonstrate the continued interest and potential growth within the RSPO market globally.  

Moreover, it is to be noted that the 16 CBs who have already achieved accreditation will now be subject to ongoing annual surveillance assessments by ASI.  This will involve both assessments of their accredited offices to demonstrate that their procedures and systems continue to comply with all applicable RSPO requirements; as well as witnessing of their supply chain and P&C audit teams in the field.  This process is already fully underway, with a number of surveillance assessments already having been completed in the first half of 2014. In view of the potential of certification activities under RSPO scheme, the accredited CBs are encouraged to increase their capacity and capability to allow them to be ready for the increasing market.

18% of world's palm oil production is now RSPO certified

The current estimated annual production capacity of RSPO-certified sustainable palm oil is 11.1 million metric tons, approximately 18 percent of global crude palm oil. Spread over 2.53 million hectares of certified production area,  about 49% of the world's current RSPO-certified sustainable palm oil production capacity comes from Indonesia, followed by 41% from Malaysia, and the remaining 8.2% from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Brazil, Thailand, Colombia, Cambodia and Ivory Coast. 

In response to the urgent and pressing global call for sustainably-produced palm oil, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was formed in 2004 with the objective of promoting the growth and use of sustainable oil palm products through credible global standards and engagement of stakeholders. The RSPO Secretariat is currently based in Kuala Lumpur with satellite offices in Jakarta and London. RSPO is a not-for-profit association that unites stakeholders from seven sectors of the palm oil industry - oil palm producers, palm oil processors or traders, consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, banks and investors, environmental or nature conservation NGOs and social or developmental NGOs - to develop and implement global standards for sustainable palm oil.

Such multi-stakeholder representation is mirrored in the governance structure of RSPO such that seats in the Executive Board and project-level Working Groups are fairly allocated to each sector. In this way, RSPO lives out the philosophy of the "roundtable" by giving equal rights to each stakeholder group to bring group-specific agendas to the roundtable, facilitating traditionally adversarial stakeholders and business competitors to work together towards a common objective and make decisions by consensus.

Contact for RSPO Secretariat: 

Salahudin Yaacob

Technical Director