18 January 2017

Supporting landscape-level transformation within Musim Mas’ supplier base

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Supporting landscape-level transformation within Musim Mas’ supplier base

The Consortium of Resource Experts (CORE), comprising Proforest, Rainforest Alliance and Daemeter Consulting, has been supporting Musim Mas to meet its commitments for sustainable palm oil sourcing since June 2015. Throughout 2016 this work has focused on mill-level verification assessments, supplier engagement, and devising strategies for multi-stakeholder landscape work.

The report provides an update on implementation of the company’s sustainable policy, particularly its ambitious goal of achieving full traceability to plantations by 2016. Musim Mas has already succeeded in determining 99% of its supply base to the mill level and 48% of its supply base to the plantation level. The remaining 52% of the supply base at the plantation level consists of smaller independent producers and plantations which presents significant difficulties when mapping supply chains. To achieve full traceability, Musim Mas plans to use satellite imagery to map their independent plantations and smallholder producers.

A key theme of the report is the importance of delivering landscape-level transformation by prioritising high-risk areas where efforts will be most effective. CORE has supported this work so far by delivering a programme of mill-level verification assessments within these high-risk areas. These assessments seek to highlight areas for improvement, detect common sustainability challenges, inform the planning of interventions and, crucially, establish constructive supplier engagement. This highlights how, with support from CORE, Musim Mas is aiming to drive widespread transformation across its supplier base.

The verification assessments carried out by CORE provide Musim Mas with a solid foundation from which to engage with suppliers in the coming years. Beyond this, CORE’s continued support ensures that sustainability commitments are effectively translated into on-the-ground action in a way that can be successfully monitored and replicated in other priority areas.

Read Musim Mas’ latest Sustainability Policy Progress Report.