Palmoil.io Newsletter - October 2022
Welcome to the Palmoil.io Newsletter
October 2022
Welcome to our latest newsletter. Among the highlights, we have been awarded a new grant, opened an office in Jakarta, and have some new insights and tips on how to make the most out of your palmoil.io subscription. This newsletter is also publicly available on our blog. Feel free to share it.
1. What’s new
Packard Awards MapHubs Grant to support Palmoil.io
We are very pleased to announce that the David and Lucile Packard Foundation has provided a two year grant to support our work. The grant will help us provide access to Palmoil.io and training to Indonesian civil society organizations. Palmoil.io data and insights will support these organizations on a range of projects from researching peat land loss to monitoring high risk suppliers.
As part of the grant, we are also developing a new landscape monitoring feature, which will help subscribers analyze supply chain risks at the jurisdictional scale. Palmoil.io Landscapes will provide analytics and maps on palm oil-related deforestation and supply chain risks, grievances, and recent news stories. It will aim to provide the comprehensive and dynamic insights into which landscapes are high and low risk for sourcing.
If you are an Indonesia-based civil society organization that would like to participate in the program, please contact us.
We’ve made it easier to contact us
We have made it easier to book a consultation with us. Just visit Palmoil.io and you can directly book an appointment with us. We will explain the various features of Palmoil.io and discuss your monitoring needs. Just have a quick question? You can message us directly on WhatsApp on +1 91 7999 5192.
New Risk Insights
We are detecting an uptick in deforestation inside Indonesia concessions as well as high rates of deforestation in close proximity to palm mills in Peru. New and recurring cases of industrial deforestation have been identified inside Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Papua. This is trend indicates that Indonesia deforestation rates may indeed be increasing over 2021. Deforestation events are also linked to the supply chains of refiners with NDPE commitments. For example, we found industrial deforestation likely associated with two concessions in Kalimantan owned by Darmex, a company evicted from the RSPO for NDPE violations. Despite this sanction, we found links 32 refiners, traders, and consumer goods companies linked to Darmex's mills.
What’s coming up
Palmoil.io at RT2022
Palmoil.io with be attending our very first RSPO RT meeting! We will be exhibiting at RT2022 in Kuala Lumpur from November 28-30, 2022. If you are attending, please come by our booth to try out Palmoil.io and discuss your supply chain monitoring needs. The meeting should provide an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas for putting sustainable palm oil supply chains into practice.
Jakarta Office Opening
We are opening our first satellite office in Jakarta, Indonesia! Our new Indonesia team will work with us to support our subscribers, providing online and in person training. We'll have more information on our new capabilities and team members in the next newsletter.
Tip of the month
Portfolio allows Palmoil.io subscribers to save data from the platform to private lists. This helps users group information according to a particular company, geography, or topic. For example, if you source from three Darmex mills, you can search for the mills by name and then save them to the list. The list aggregates the deforestation statistics for each mill and gives you summary statistics. You could also choose specific concessions or refineries to monitor. Lists can be kept fully private or shared with members of your team.
Case of the month
This month's case comes from the Peruvian Amazon. While there has a been a lot of attention on declines in palm-related deforestation in Indonesia, deforestation rates are rising elsewhere. We are seeing high deforestation rates in proximity to mills in Malaysia, Central Africa, and South America. Out of the top ten mills with the high number of forest alerts last month, 6 were in Peru. This mill owned by Olamsa had over 326 hectares of forest alerts.
What does this mean? It means that measuring progress commodity by commodity and country by country does not fully capture the global impacts of deforestation-related to palm oil. This is particularly the case in emerging regions where there is less monitoring and scrutiny. To learn more about this and other cases, subscribe at Palmoil.io/pricing.
Benefit of the month
Another reason to subscribe to Palmoil.io is we actively map mills. When we find a mill, we submit them to the Rainforest Alliance-managed Universal Mill List platform, so the mills can be reviewed for inclusion in the UML. We then update our mill list, which helps us trace potential deforestation and other risks. Last month, we had 9 mills added to the UML. You can download them as well as all of our other mills at palmoil.io/mills. If you want to monitor any mills, our subscriptions start at $49/month.
For more information, please contact us at info@maphubs.com.