JAKARTA — A major palm oil producer linked through supplier-reported mill lists to global brands like General Mills and PepsiCo has escaped sanction for allegedly concealing a web of “shadow companies” linked to deforestation and rights abuses, after the industry’s leading certification body ruled the allegations fell outside its current rules. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) dismissed allegations that Indonesian conglomerate First Resources Ltd. (FRL) controls a network of shadow companies — affiliates secretly under the same ownership but undeclared to regulators — despite evidence presented by NGOs linking these firms to deforestation, peatland destruction, river pollution and labor abuses. The decision by RSPO has triggered outrage among NGOs that say it exposes a loophole that lets corporate groups hide destructive operations behind undeclared affiliates while keeping their sustainability credentials intact. A group of NGOs, whose names were not disclosed in the panel’s decision, filed the complaint against FRL in 2021. They alleged FRL secretly controlled three firms — identified in the RSPO decision only as Company A, B and D, but presumed by NGOs to be FAP Agri, Ciliandry Anky Abadi (CAA) and New Borneo Agri (NBA). CAA has been Indonesia’s single biggest palm oil deforester for the past two years, according to analysis by French-based technology consultancy TheTreeMap. By not declaring these affiliates, NGOs say, FRL has been able to profit from destructive operations while still touting its 2015 zero-deforestation pledge and RSPO membership — allowing it to keep selling certified “sustainable” palm oil to multinational…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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