The RSPO has been criticised by various sectors, especially the environmental
NGOs. Issues include the impact of palm oil plantations on the orangutan population;
destruction of tropical forest for the new oil palm plantations; the burning and draining of large tracts of
peat swamp forest in
Borneo, Malaysia. The fact that RSPO members are allowed to clear cut pristine forest areas, when there are large areas of grasslands available in Indonesia, raises doubts about commitment to sustainability. In 2013, the 11th annual RSPO meeting was crashed by palm oil workers and others, and Indonesian and international labour-rights groups have documented a litany of abuses, including forced labour and child labour. A 2013 study uncovered "flagrant disregard for human rights at some of the very plantations the RSPO certifies as 'sustainable'". The RSPO's pace of progress has drawn considerable negative attention. The organization is currently revising its core Principles and Criteria, only now after five years with the current set, to include a clear standard on deforestation of
high conservation value forests, and it took until 2017 to develop a clear Smallholder Standard. The
Rainforest Action Network views the RSPO as a
greenwashing tool. Meanwhile, Greenpeace claims that, whilst RSPO has finally banned deforestation after 14 years, this isn't enforced and its members continue to destroy forests. The effectiveness of RSPO certification in upholding social and environmental standards in the palm oil industry has been questioned. Using long-term census data from
Indonesia, the world's largest palm oil producer, the study compared the real differences between those with and without RSPO certification. The study found that the impact of RSPO certification on village-level well-being varied across regions. Minor positive effects were observed in villages that relied primarily on market-based livelihoods before certification, while RSPO certification was associated with significant negative outcomes in rural areas dominated by
subsistence farming. This discrepancy may be due to the fact that certified plantations controlled by a single company tend to be larger than non-certified plantations, making their resulting social and environmental externalities more difficult to mitigate. These negative externalities are then borne by neighboring non-RSPO-certified plantations. The assessment relied on
causal inference, i.e., that deforestation was explicitly linked to certified plantations. A
counterfactual evaluation of
forest loss in the same region found that certification significantly reduced deforestation, but clearance of peatland clearance or land fires, among participating plantations. Counterfactual evaluations also reveal subtle differences in oil palm impacts between regions, and important trade-offs between environment and development. For example, an appraisal of more than 3000 villages in Indonesia with large-scale oil palm plantations found that compared with similar villages with non-certified plantations, those with RSPO certified plantations experienced an overall reduction in well-being. However, this pattern masked considerable variation across oil palm producing villages - those that had long established plantation agriculture (primarily in Sumatra) experienced improvements in well-being following certification, while those that relied more on subsistence-based livelihoods (primarily in Kalimantan) did not. Those involved in counterfactual evaluations of oil palm and certification agree that more positive impacts of certification will follow recent improvements in standards
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) The
WWF released a Palm Oil Buyer's Scorecard in 2009. The website stated in 2010: Clearing for oil palm plantations threatens some of the world's greatest forests, endangered species such as orangutans, and puts forest-dwelling people at risk. But with better management practices, the palm oil industry could provide benefits without threatening our some of our most breathtaking natural treasures... Reaching those objectives requires a common language for industry, environmental and social groups to work together. Through the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), WWF has helped to establish a platform for these parties to collaborate towards the production of sustainable palm oil. Thanks to the RSPO, sustainable palm oil is now on the market. By applying stringent production criteria to all stages of palm oil manufacture, some companies are proving that oil palm plantations need not flourish at the expense of rainforests. But so much more remains to be done. Too many palm oil producers still ignore the destructive impacts of palm oil plantations, contributing to
biodiversity loss and social unrest and more companies that buy palm oil need to switch to using certified sustainable palm oil in their products. In 2018, the WWF updated its position to support the RSPO Updated Principles and Criteria, the outcome of an extensive multi-stakeholder consultation process on achieving sustainable palm oil production, stating that the RSPO "represents an essential tool that can help companies achieve their commitments to palm oil that is free of deforestation, expansion on peat, exploitation and the use of fire." WWF continues to monitor the palm oil industry. ==Other roundtable initiatives==