OREANDA-NEWS. Wilmar International Limited (“Wilmar” or “the Group”) is pleased to announce the publication of its Sustainability Report 2015. Titled “Focused on Driving Value”, the Group’s fourth Sustainability Report centres on a commitment to value creation through sustainable business practices. 

The Report documents the progress the Group has made in the last two years under review. Wilmar has been working closely with its suppliers, partners, non-governmental organisations (NGO), local communities, and government agencies to implement its Integrated Policy of “No Deforestation, No Peat and No Exploitation” (NDPE) to steer the palm oil industry towards responsible and sustainable practices.

In particular, Wilmar has achieved many notable industry firsts: • First to launch a sustainability dashboard • First to publish full list of crude palm oil suppliers online • First to disclose traceability to mills • First to launch a specific grievance procedure

“The last two years has been an enriching journey. We have worked hard to take large steps towards turning our policy aspirations into a reality but we also recognise that much remains to be done, including the development of a clear means to measure and track the progress of sustainability commitments to assess its effectiveness in reducing actual deforestation,” said Wilmar’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Mr Jeremy Goon. “In 2016, we continue to engage with our partners and stakeholders to uphold our NDPE aspiration, and focus on driving sustainable value to our business, the environment and society.”

Mr Neil Judd, co-founder and director of Proforest, a non-profit group that supports organisations to implement their production and sourcing commitments, provided an independent opinion on the materiality and responsiveness of this Report. He commented, “Wilmar continue to deserve great credit for their sustainability leadership in the palm oil sector. This 2015 Sustainability Report summarises many of the strengths that Wilmar have demonstrated since the launch of their NDPE policy in 2013, and itself is a reflection of the company’s ongoing commitment to transparency. Given the acknowledged sector transformation objective, Wilmar’s task now is to convert the scale and complexity of the challenge represented by their third-party suppliers into a set of practical and feasible measures that can be implemented and reported on.”

The Report follows the reporting guidelines in accordance with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) G4 principles which place the concept of materiality at the heart of sustainability reporting. EY performed limited assurance procedures on selected information disclosed in the Report.