What is This Initiative?

The Decent Rural Living Initiative (DRLI) represents a collaborative effort among five major palm oil producers – Cargill, Golden Agri-Resources, Musim Mas, Sime Darby Plantation, and Wilmar. As Anchor Partners, they unite with experts and stakeholders to formulate sustainable, long-term solutions for the well-being of rural workers in the palm oil industry, initially focusing on Indonesia.

Recognising the urgent need for collective action to address ongoing concerns about systemic human rights failings across the palm oil sector, the Anchor Partners engaged Forum for the Future to facilitate a consultative process to identify areas where businesses could have direct impact.

Formed in early 2018, the Decent Rural Living Initiative (DRLI) is a unique pre-competitive collaboration that aims to help ensure the sustainability of the palm oil sector in the long term.

Forum for the Future acted as the convening partner for the initiative in its development stage. Their expertise led the partners and other key stakeholders through a series of strategic conversations to identify areas where the growers are well-positioned to accelerate solutions through pre-competitive collaboration.

Six focus areas were identified from these conversations and further developed into the current three pilot projects.

  • Protecting Children’s Rights
  • Gender Committees
  • Designathon