Through Project Lampung, a collaborative sustainability initiative, Solidaridad, BASF, The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC), and The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) have made real progress strengthening the sustainable palm oil supply chain and supporting smallholder farmers. Since its launch in 2018, Project Lampung has provided technical education and training to 1,003 independent palm oil smallholders and helped 313 farmers receive official RSPO certification, the first such group in the Way Kanan Regency.

“With great pleasure, we announced the achievement of one of the primary objectives of Project Lampung, to have nearly one-third of the supported smallholder farmers achieve certification according to the Smallholder Standard of RSPO within three years.” said Marcelo Lu, BASF Care Chemicals, Senior Vice President. “The dedication and commitment of our project partners, in collaboration with the Indonesian government, have been instrumental in fostering a sustainable palm oil production supply chain in Lampung.”

This is the very first project in Way Kanan aimed at enhancing the capacity of palm oil smallholders.

“This project has proven to be pivotal in sparking sustainable production of palm oil in the Way Kanan district. At the heart of this project are the small palm oil farmers themselves. It is only they who can transform the palm oil supply chain and we were happy to assist them with the technical support and knowledge needed to adopt climate smart production practices.” stated Yeni Fitriyanti, Country Manager for Solidaridad Indonesia. “Apart from the benefit of increased sustainable palm oil production, small farmers in Way Kanan are now able to advocate for their own interests in the supply chain.”

With the support of a strengthened cooperative the project partners worked with the Indonesian government and other local organizations to conduct a Social Impact Assessment and an Environmental Impact Assessment. They also mapped farmers' fields and uploaded all relevant data to the RSPO database to verify that no deforestation or land conversion had taken place.

“Around the world, we are committed to taking concrete action within and around our supply chain in support of sustainability and support local communities,” said Roberto Canevari, Executive Vice President, Global Supply Chain, The Estée Lauder Companies. “We are proud to collaborate with smallholder farmers and our partners at BASF, RSPO and Solidaridad to strengthen sustainability in palm oil supply chains.”