Environmental Reporting Framework for Oil Palm Smallholders and Small Medium Estates (SMEs) in Malaysia
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Grant Category, Year: Small Research Grant, 2021
Abstract
The palm oil sector has been in the public limelight due to environmental and biodiversity issues that are mostly related to deforestation and unsustainable planting practices. Complaints and antipalm oil campaigns have changed the way in which palm oil companies do their business today. Companies are taking serious actions in improving their practices and pursuing sustainable development programs. A study by Chain Reaction Research (2020) found that more than 80% of large Malaysian palm oil companies adopt No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation policies (NDPE) in their business. They also improve environmental disclosure and become transparent in delivering information about their impact on environment to stakeholders (Abdullah et al. 2020). They usually disclose environmental information in sustainability report, which is a supplementary to annual report that can be accessed publicly on their website and Bursa Malaysia.
Apart from that, stakeholders can also track the companies’ sustainability progress through Sustainability Policy Transparency Toolkit (SPOTT), which is annually prepared by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) since 2014. Several other independent bodies, such as the WWF and The Global Canopy, also assess the sustainability of large palm oil companies. They use systematic methodologies in assessing companies’ environmental accountability and giving score on the basis of the companies’ publicly available disclosure. However, none of the companies assessed is from small medium estates (SMEs) and smallholders (Zoological Society of London 2020), most probably due to the limited access of information.
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