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Dutch Banking Sector Agreement visits palm oil plantation in Indonesia

Parties within the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement recently visited Indonesia as a part of their efforts in mapping the value chain of the palm oil sector. The purpose of the fieldtrip was to take a closer look at the labour conditions on the plantations and to test the preliminary findings of the palm oil value chain analysis.

Field trip
Labour unions CNV and FNV organised the fieldtrip as part of the value chain working group of the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement. The programme consisted of two visits to palm oil plantations in Sumatra. During these visits, the working group met with worker representatives of one plantation, visited a mill and visited several facilities on the plantations such as schools and a medical clinic. The delegation also paid a visit to the Dutch embassy in Jakarta, the local office of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the local civil society organisation TuK Indonesia, who advocate the fulfilment of people constitutional rights on environment, natural resource & human rights. The working group used the expertise obtained to check numbers, data and the preliminary findings of the palm oil value chain analysis.

Value chain mapping
By signing the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement, banks have committed to implement a human rights due diligence procedure in their corporate lending and project finance activities. Mapping high risk value chains – including the most severe human rights impacts in these chains – could help banks in implementing such human rights due diligence procedure. The palm oil value chain is the second value chain that the parties in the agreement are mapping, last summer an analysis of the cocoa sector was published.







Publication date 17 04 2019