RSPO strengthens its European and global team with the appointment of new Global Communications Director in Kuala Lumpur, European Director of Outreach & Engagement and Technical Manager Europe.

 

Europe is currently the largest consumer market for certified sustainable palm oil, however much needs to be done before the market will be fully transformed and 100% sustainable.  There is need to educate key stakeholders on the importance of sustainable palm oil in order to boost commitment from European industry players, which is instrumental in  increasing the uptake of sustainable palm oil globally.  Danielle Morley, former Executive Secretary of the global NGO Freshwater Action Network, joins the RSPO to conduct more targeted stakeholder engagement and advocacy campaigns in the region. 

 

Danielle Morley: “Europe is a major consumer of palm oil and market leader for sustainability, our consumers, manufacturers and retailers are driving change in the supply chain across many different products. I want to make sure that we can do the same for certified sustainable palm oil using the RSPO standard system.   I am excited to start this challenging work and am confident that my international experience with stakeholder engagement and advocacy campaigns for sustainable development will help us get more actors on board and so stimulate the market transformation towards 100% sustainable palm oil in Europe.”

 

The RSPO’s increased focus on communications is also reflected by the appointment of Joycelyn Lee as RSPO’s Global Communications Director.  Based in the RSPO’s secretariat in Malaysia, Joycelyn will oversee all communications activities in the regions where the RSPO is active and will work towards raising  awareness about  sustainable palm oil in both producer and consumer markets.

 

Joycelyn Lee: “The RSPO has entered a crucial phase and is moving towards a tipping point to make the entire industry 100% sustainable. There are important challenges ahead in both producer and consumer markets and awareness raising and education through communications will play an important role in dealing with these challenges and turning them into a success.”

 

Former head of Burson-Marsteller’s Malaysia office, Joycelyn Lee has been active in the communications industry for more than 7 years, specialising in corporate and financial communications with the emphasis on the oil & gas sector, crisis communications and corporate responsibility programmes.  Joycelyn also has more than 15 years of journalism experience covering political, socio-economic and business affairs. 

Joycelyn will head the global RSPO communications team and will be based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Danielle will be located in London and will oversee all European communications activities. 

 

Danielle will be supported by Inke van der Sluijs, Technical Manager Europe, who will be in charge of all supply chain certification activities and advise the RSPO on new rules and regulations on vegetable oils in the EU. 

 

More information on all new hires can be found below.

 

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Highly experienced strategist, advocate and senior manager of international development programmes, Danielle has a proven track record of facilitating stakeholder engagement and partnerships for policy development.  

 

Between 2011 and 2012 Danielle worked for international charity WaterAid where she founded and developed Freshwater Action Network into a global NGO in the water and sanitation sector, with regional hubs in South Asia, Africa and Latin America.  The Network’s advocacy was instrumental in securing recognition by the UK and later the UN of the human right to water and sanitation. 

 

A recognised expert in sustainable development policy, Danielle Morley set up in 2012 Twenty50 Sustainability, a consultancy whose associates specialise in developing strategy and policy, communications, global level initiatives and stakeholder partnerships. 

 

She is a frequent speaker in high level policy forums, such as Rio 2012 UN Global Compact, 2012 World Water Forum Ministerial Conference and 2011 Bonn Water-Food-Energy Nexus. Danielle is a former property and environmental lawyer; she holds an MSc from Imperial College in Environmental Technology (Global) and is a Trustee at the Environmental Law Foundation and Freshwater Action Network Global. Danielle lives and works in London, UK. 

 

Joycelyn Lee was most recently the Market Leader of Burson-Marsteller Malaysia, bringing the company back into the country after the absence of more than 12 years away from Malaysia. Having joined Burson-Marsteller Malaysia in 2010, she oversaw the company's operations which encompassed the Corporate and Financial Communications, Digital & Technology and Ethical Healthcare practices. 

In 2011-2013 Joycelyn also served as Vice-President and then Acting President of the Public Relations Consultants' Association of Malaysia. Prior to that, she held a post of Acting General Manager in Fleishman-Hillard Kuala Lumpur. During her tenure in Fleishman-Hillard, Joycelyn received a number of accolades for her work, including Financial Campaign of the Year and CSR Campaign of the Year at the Malaysia PR Awards in 2007.  Her clients included BMW, Pfizer, Microsoft and Shell. 

Prior to that, Joycelyn worked as a journalist for 15 years covering economic news for a number of Malaysia’s influential business publications, including The Edge Financial Daily and The Edge Financial Weekly. 

 

Before joining RSPO, Inke worked as a policy advisor on sustainable development in the Dutch Product Board for Margarines, Fats and Oils (MVO). In that role Inke ran the secretariat of the Dutch Task Force on Sustainable Palm Oil and was a member of the Standing Committee Communication & Claims. Inke has a PhD in biology and was involved in a number of ecology, conservation, and sustainability projects.

 

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The current estimated annual production capacity of RSPO-certified sustainable palm oil is 8.2 million metric tonnes, approximately 15% of global palm oil production. Spread over 2.2 million hectares of certified area, about 48.2% of the world's current RSPO-certified sustainable palm oil production capacity comes from Indonesia, followed by 43.9% from Malaysia, and the remaining 7.9% from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Cambodia, Brazil, Colombia 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 seat of the association is in Zurich, Switzerland, while the secretariat is currently based in Kuala Lumpur with a satellite office in Jakarta.

 

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.