Trustee of the Indonesian Auditor Network Bart W. van Assen said that the authors of the new report are failing to grasp the fundamentally different roles of the RSPO, the High Conservation Value Resource Network (HCVRN)¹, Assurance Services International (ASI), and the numerous conformity assessment bodies.

“Hence, they also fail to identify many of the practical actions taken by these organisations,” Van Assen said.

Van Assen is scathing about the new report, calling it “a shallow attempt to act as judge, jury, and executioner based on incomplete records and inadequate due diligence”.

He said the report “merely polarises public debate about sustainable palm oil, alienates the actors of change within the RSPO, the HCVRN and ASI, and drives a wedge between complainant and complainee”.

This is unfortunate, Van Assen says. “Valid criticism has been, and no doubt will be, addressed by the organisations involved,” he added.

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