2 September 2024, Singapore — Musim Mas announces the expansion of its landscape strategy to include provinces beyond Aceh, now covering Riau, North Sumatra, South Sumatra, Central Kalimantan, and West Kalimantan. The landscape strategy was crafted with the aim of developing a targeted approach for priority landscapes. These priority landscapes were identified through a comprehensive assessment done by the Group, spanning the entirety of Indonesia.
The strategy upholds the Group’s No Deforestation, No Peat, and No Exploitation (NDPE) commitment. It is an integrated approach that addresses environmental and social outcomes in key sourcing areas, especially smallholder farmers’ livelihoods and supplying mills’ compliance with its policy. The strategy is a commitment to convening and collaborating with key stakeholders, including local communities, businesses, NGOs, and governments, to build consensus on inclusive landscape management.
Over the years, Musim Mas has collaborated with various stakeholders in its priority landscapes. In 2020, the Group launched its first Smallholders Hub in Aceh Tamiang with the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) as part of a project to reduce deforestation, promote sustainable agriculture, and improve livelihoods. The Group went on to establish a second Smallholders Hub with General Mills in Aceh Singkil that same year. By 2021, the Group had expanded its efforts, partnering with companies like AAK and Nestlé in Aceh Subulussalam. Then, in November 2023, Bunge and Musim Mas Group announced their partnership to promote sustainable practices among smallholder farmers in Sambas, West Kalimantan, Indonesia.
Expanded Initiative of the Aceh Strategy
This new landscape strategy builds on the foundation laid by the Aceh Strategy, which was introduced in 2020, serving as a precursor to the current strategy. It comprises three key approaches—Engagement, Assurance, and Monitoring and Response—to ensure compliance with the Musim Mas NDPE commitment. Engagement entails outreach to all producers in priority areas to inform them of NDPE requirements, ensuring alignment with Musim Mas’ sustainability goals. Assurance entails that systems are in place to ensure that the mills supplying crude palm oil and palm kernels to Musim Mas are NDPE compliant. The Monitoring and Response approach sets proactive elements to detect and verify deforestation at the landscape or jurisdictional level.
With the introduction of the new strategy, Musim Mas maintains these approaches and takes a proactive stance, extending efforts to encompass all remaining priority landscapes of the Group. This expansion further solidifies our commitment to multi-stakeholder engagement across a wider geographical area. The targets and objectives of this new strategy are aligned with the Aceh Strategy and cover the period from 2023 until 2025.
Landscapes Strategy as A Solution to Effect Change
The Group recognized early on the need to support other businesses, such as the smaller plantation companies, stand-alone mills, and smallholder farmers, in transforming land use practices, improving producer livelihoods, and promoting sustainable land use. Musim Mas empathizes with the challenges faced by these entities and has developed the landscape strategy as a proactive solution to these challenges and to promote thriving landscapes.
Since 2015, the company has actively engaged in various multi-stakeholder platforms and fostered partnerships with significant stakeholders at landscape and sector-wide levels. Hence, including targets such as developing landscape strategies for all of the Group’s priority regions was a key deliverable in Musim Mas’ ‘NDPE Roadmap to A Responsible Supply Base 2025’ . As of December 2023, Musim Mas actively participates in landscape partnerships across six provinces.
Progressing against the targets of the Agricultural Sector Roadmap to 1.5 Degrees
In 2022, Musim Mas and 13 other agricultural companies became signatories to the Agriculture Sector Roadmap to 1.5 Degrees convened by the Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA). The roadmap aims to halt commodity-linked deforestation in line with the 1.5-degree pathway while enhancing the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and supporting the sector’s transformation toward forest-positive land-use management. As an early adopter of landscape strategies, Musim Mas has been aligning its efforts with the objectives of the TFA roadmap. The Group sees value in leveraging its experience and expertise over the years and playing a key role in scaling up collective action in key producing regions and foster thriving landscapes with other signatories of the TFA roadmap.
“Achieving compliance to our policy remains challenging, especially for stakeholders like smallholders and other smaller players, despite ongoing efforts to improve industry standards. Recognising the interconnectedness of stakeholders and ecosystems in these priority areas, we see an opportunity for collaboration to drive sector transformation, building on the groundwork laid by the Aceh Strategy and expanding into other areas.” said Olivier Tichit, Director of Sustainability at Musim Mas.
To ensure transparency and accountability, the Group annually discloses progress against the Aceh Strategy in their Aceh Reports. With the introduction of this expanded landscape strategy, Musim Mas will provide progress updates on targets in a consolidated report from 2024 onwards. By December 2025, the Group will aim for complete alignment with sector roadmap milestones, providing concrete and measurable updates on its priority landscapes. To read the Group’s latest landscape strategy, please click here – Musim Mas Priority Landscapes Strategy Document 2024.
About Musim Mas
Musim Mas Group is an integrated palm oil company globally, operating in 13 countries. From plantations, mills, refineries, kernel-crushing plants, oleochemicals, and specialty fats plants, Musim Mas manufactures palm oil products and value-added derivatives. Musim Mas is one of the largest palm oil producers in the world. The Group develops innovative value-added solutions for its customers, supported by Research and Development (R&D) centers in Singapore and Indonesia. Inter-Continental Oils and Fats (ICOF), a member of Musim Mas Group, undertakes global marketing activities.
The Group is committed to sustainability and was the first company with significant operations in Indonesia to join the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2004. Committed early to emissions reductions, Musim Mas is a signatory to the Agriculture Sector Roadmap to 1.5 Degrees convened by the Tropical Forest Alliance. The roadmap aims to halt commodity-linked deforestation in line with the 1.5-degree pathway while enhancing the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and supporting the sector’s transformation toward forest-positive land-use management. In January 2024, Musim Mas announced that it will strive to achieve net zero by 2050, aligning with climate science as per the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). Musim Mas also manages the most extensive independent smallholder programs in Indonesia.
