The Terpercaya Initiative: Jurisdictional Palm Oil Traceability in Indonesia

Indonesia’s Terpercaya platform is an inclusive, nationwide system used to track sustainable palm oil, and define district sustainability at scale across the country. The system has evolved from an EU-funded study to monitor jurisdictional sustainability in Indonesian commodity production, launched in April 2018, led by the European Forest Institute (EFI) and Inovasi Bumi (INOBU)

Palm oil traceability in Indonesia, is hampered by the complexity of the supply chain which includes a large mix of independent smallholders and informal traders. To avoid exclusion of these actors from markets requiring assurance of legal, sustainable and deforestation-free palm oil, extensive data collection is required which is unavailable. However, company representatives are reluctant to share this data and supplier information due to commercial concerns.

This brief, brief 10, presents the results of a legal review and interviews which were carried out as part of the Terpercaya initiative with four palm oil producers (mills and refineries) and five downstream companies, including agribusiness, palm oil manufacturers and consumer goods companies. It identifies traceability data to be collected, retained and disclosed to accelerate progress in palm oil traceability in Indonesia. Briefing 10 presents the issues identified through the interviews that may hamper the development of a national traceability platform, but explains how jurisdictional approaches can improve this traceability.