Today, the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) is releasing the findings of a GAP analysis authored by Pierre Bois d’Enghien, RSPO auditor and sustainability expert, and advisor to multiple international commodity producers and traders.
The GAP analysis makes a number of crucial findings with regard to the ability of MSPO to serve as a tool for compliance with EUDR requirements.
It is clear from this analysis that the EU now must intensify its current engagements with Malaysia to ensure that MSPO can be accepted as a genuine verification tool for EUDR compliance.
- The MSPO standard’s sustainability requirements meet the EUDR deforestation requirements
- MSPO also meets the EUDR legality requirements
- The MSPO Public Summary requirements (stipulated in the MSPO Certification Scheme Document) can fulfil the due diligence statement under the EUDR, with some limited exceptions
- The MSPO Public Summary requirements provide the basis for a risk assessment by importers using MSPO Trace website information as a verification system.
- MSPO Certificates do not provide the information required for the due diligence statement, although the other documentation (e.g., public summaries) do so
- There is a risk to group certified entities in using MSPO certification because under EUDR disaggregation of smallholders under a group certification is not possible:
Author Pierre Bois d’Enghien made the following statement:
“The analysis finds that the recent additions and upgrades to MSPO mean that it is well-placed to support Malaysian companies’ compliance with EUDR, and in many areas MSPO can on its own act as a 100 per cent compliance tool”
Belvinder Kaur Sron, Chief Executive Officer of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council made the following statement:
“Malaysia leads the world in producing sustainable, deforestation-free palm oil, and as a result Malaysian companies will meet the EUDR requirements. MSPO is the gold standard for sustainable palm oil certification, and this analysis demonstrates once again the efforts and commitments that Malaysia has made.”
The full GAP Analysis is available online here.
