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Palm Ventures 2021 Sustainability Report
Palm Ventures 2021 Sustainability Report
Palm Ventures 2021 Sustainability Report
(A Hypothetical Excerpt)
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Contents
Introduction 2
2021 Highlights 6
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Introduction
Welcome to Palm Ventures 2021 Sustainability Report. This report is Palm Venture’s third annual
sustainability report, which builds on the performance and learnings of past performance. It
contains information on our strategic environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks,
objectives, priorities, and initiatives. It provides shareholders with detailed information on Palm
Ventures’ sustainability performance and challenges.
The report primarily relates to Palm Ventures’ FY21 corporate activities, which covers the period
Jan 2021 – Dec 2021, but in many instances forward-looking statements are also included to
demonstrate Palm Ventures’ good faith and intended activities in relation to this report.
The report provides a summary of our FY21 sustainability performance and discusses our
approach to sustainability and how we measure and manage our ESG risks across our value
chain.
Where Palm Ventures has been required to rely on third-party information, unless explicitly
communicated the sources of this information have not been independently verified and Palm
Ventures therefore does not take responsibility for the accuracy of this information. In future, we
are considering aligning our sustainability reports with the Global Reporting Initiative and also
having them independently assured.
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About Palm Ventures
Palm Ventures is located in Indonesia, headquartered in Jakarta and was established in 1997.
We are one of Indonesia’s largest palm oil plantation companies.
Our plantations are located within various regions in Indonesia, including Riau, Jambi, South
Sumatra, East Kalimantan, and Papua.
We both produce and trade palm oil. Our main business activities comprise cultivating oil palm
trees, harvesting and processing Fresh Fruit Bunches, producing Palm Kernel, Palm Kernel Shell,
Crude Palm Oil, and Crude Palm Kernel Oil.
Our vision is to be the largest Indonesian-based, worldwide provider of quality, palm oil
products. We also aim to enrich our communities and strengthen economic and community
development as evidenced by our engagement with 33,000 smallholders (with 64,500 hectares of
oil palm planted) to date on a contractual basis.
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Overview
21 18 8 33,000
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Our Key ESG Values
● Treat all staff, customers, and suppliers with respect.
● No exploitation: respect land tenure rights and the rights of indigenous and local
communities.
● Promote open and honest communication.
● Support community empowerment and livelihood improvement.
● Protect forests and biodiversity.
● Ensure a sustainable palm oil supply chain.
In recent years, we have been confronted with many ESG challenges, which have impacted the way
we grow, source, and process our products – and operate our business more widely. In particular,
the impacts of the external investigation into our operations in 2018 have significantly impacted our
approach to sustainability, requiring us to change the way we work, manage our supply chain and
engage with our stakeholders.
Material Matters
The following are key ESG issues that are most important to Palm Ventures’ stakeholders.
Priority Topics
Important Topics
Data Privacy Waste & Effluents Employee Training Community Energy Efficiency
Management & Development Contribution Management
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2021 Highlights
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Our Approach to Sustainability
Given Palm Ventures is founded on farming practices – we take our approach to land
management and the consumption of natural resources seriously and understand that we have a
responsibility to do the right thing by our stakeholders – including the communities that we
serve and operate in. We are therefore committed to managing our resources carefully and
efficiently.
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Sustainability Impact Baseline Data
Human Rights & • Percentage of employees paid above legal minimum wages 92 100
of respective regions (%)
Equality • Percentage of direct suppliers that have human rights 40 65
commitments in their NDPE policy (%)
• Percentage of suppliers receiving human rights awareness 30 34
training (%)
• Number of Female Senior Management (#) 0 1
Energy Efficiency • Total energy consumption by business activity (MWh) 70,308,210 69,218,280
Management
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Measuring & Managing ESG risks
Ever since an external investigation was conducted of our operations in 2018, we have taken a
more proactive approach to measuring and managing our ESG risks. The 2018 investigative
report linked our company operations to significant rainforest destruction and unfortunately the
impact of the report was made more significant by the fact that we had committed to ending
deforestation 5 years prior to the investigation.
The investigation found that deforestation was occurring in Riau, Indonesia with approximately
26,000 hectares of rainforest and peatland being destroyed over the 5-year period since our ‘no
deforestation’ commitment was made.
This controversy posed a major ESG risk for us and our customers, including high-profile
companies like Nestle, Unilever and PepsiCo. As a result, four executives from Palm Ventures
stepped down three days after the report was published. This report was a significant shock to
our business, given our value for the environment and our commitment to no-deforestation. For
this reason, ever since the report was published, we have committed to restoring 50,000 hectares
of forest in Riau. The remediation work is currently being monitored closely with publicly available
maps of the restoration areas.
In recent years, we have also been accused of buying palm oil from other mills that were found to
have destructive practices in place. Some media reports claimed that we attempted to conceal
our ties with these operators (from 2010-2015) and were running them as “shadow companies”
by allowing them to find a market with companies that don’t have zero-deforestation policies in
place. We strongly reject this claim and are open to working with the industry to address the issue
of “shadow companies” in the Indonesian palm oil sector. We are committed to making
improvements to our traceability system and also to no longer buy palm oil from suppliers found
to be violating our policies.
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As a result of the ESG issues and challenges we have been confronted with in the past, we now
take a risk-based approach to sustainability. The primary social and environmental risks of
concern for Palm Ventures in FY21 are summarised below in our sustainability risk analysis.
Risk type Likelihood Impact Palm Ventures control & mitigation measures
Climate change High Moderate Crop yields have proved variable. However, this has been mitigated by
acquiring facilities in different locations to minimise overall impacts.
Community engagement Low Moderate We are committed to supporting community empowerment, which is why we
support small, local community projects such as running a social assistance
program in Jakarta and donating to a PPE assistance program to help manage
the COVID-19 pandemic. We also donated to a school fundraising program in
Jambi and East Kalimantan across 2020-2021.
Deforestation & peatland Moderate Moderate We updated our Sustainability Policy in 2021 to include our commitment to
destruction the reforestation of our affected regions and we have also established a new
zero-deforestation commitment
Water management Moderate High We monitor projected rainfall & have water catchment opportunities in place to
help manage any dry periods we may experience.
Natural disasters High High We maintain insurance cover for natural disasters. The level and type of cover is
reviewed annually. The cost of insurance has been significantly increasing
recently.
Biodiversity loss Moderate Moderate We have a camera trap at our plantation locations to look for animals in our
plantations to help us understand what animals are impacted by our farming.
We are also running a mangrove conservation project to help provide habitat for
migrant birds.
Disease or infestation of Moderate Moderate Increased staff training, and more regular monitoring to detect and identify
plantations incidents has enabled early treatment of plantation diseases.
Misconduct, unethical Moderate High We now have formal company policies in place (which all employees must
behaviour or corruption adhere to) to prevent, mitigate, and manage misconduct. Our Code of Conduct,
Anti-corruption Policy, Conflict of Interest Policy, Confidentiality Policy and
Whistleblower Policy all assist with mitigating these risks.
Transparency & Moderate Moderate We are attempting to improve traceability within our supply chain to ensure we
accountability have improved visibility over the practises of our plantations and smallholders.
Occupational health & Low High Palm Ventures has formal standard operating procedures and a Work, Health
safety and Safety Policy in place that requires employees and our leadership team to
take reasonable action to prevent potential injury to themselves, other
employees, customers, and suppliers.
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Appendix 1 – SPOTT Scorecard Excerpt
Palm Ventures’ performance against the Sustainable Palm Oil Transparency Toolkit (SPOTT)
index on ESG transparency in the palm oil sector is summarised in the scorecard excerpt below:
Current ranking on the SPOTT platform for the transparency of ESG performance. 70/97
Sustainable palm oil policy or commitment for all its operations? Yes
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Has senior women in management roles or leadership positions (such as the Board of Directors)? Yes
Collaboration with stakeholders to reduce negative environmental or social outcomes associated with Yes
palm oil production?
Reports through a standardised reporting system (e.g. such as the Global Reporting Initiative)? No
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END OF PALM VENTURES 2021 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT EXTRACT
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