3. Mill and supply base verification assessments Risk assessment and capacity-building are complemented by verification visits to a sample of higher-risk mills, identified through the process described above, to substantiate the progress of AAK’s policy implementation, identify gaps, and support the mill to develop a time-bound action plan. At the time of publishing, three verification visits have been carried out by Proforest this year on higher-risk mills in the AAK supply base: one in Colombia, one in Malaysia, and one in Guatemala. A further three are planned before the end of the year. AAK and Proforest individually risk assess 24 all suppliers to identify and prioritize the potentially higherrisk ones based on a range of factors, including location, volumes supplied, their role and position within the supply chain, and historic and current issues or grievances. The higher-risk suppliers are then scrutinized in more detail, with geospatial risk analyses conducted on the individual mills, focusing on variables such as deforestation, peat, and protected areas. From these, specific mills are selected for verification visits. Mill verification in Colombia – a personal perspective Recently, Proforest travelled to the Colombian region of Meta, a large province in the northeast of the country, to visit one of the growing number of palm oil mills in this particular area, some of whom supply AAK. The natural vegetation in this area is still forest, but much of that has long since been converted to pasture to graze cattle. Verifications are very similar in practice to carrying out an audit. A key preparation stage is to prepare a checklist based on the requirements of the AAK Sustainable Palm Oil Policy. The checklist is broken down into thematic criteria around issues such as legal compliance, environmental performance, social and labour concerns, and so on. Each criterion is then broken down further into indicators, and it is evidence of these indicators that allows you to assess the operations of a company against the AAK policy. The verification is done on both the mill itself and its supply base. In practical terms there are three main activities involved: 1. Reviewing documents: These can range from broad policy documents such as commitments to no deforestation and respect of human rights, to registers of FFB deliveries that ensure the mill has traceability to the supply source, and the payslips of workers to ensure they are being paid at least the legal minimum wage for a given country. 2. Asking questions: A second thing a verification team does is to ask lots of questions. Particularly important are the kinds of questions that check whether what we see during the document review are played out in reality. 3. Observing actions: The third key activity is to observe actions. A company may have a no deforestation policy but you may observe evidence of forest clearance in or around company plantations. So how did it all play out for this company in Colombia? Like many companies around the world, it had its strengths and weaknesses. It is a young company growing rapidly, with a talented and committed team in place, which puts it in a good position to improve. It may only be one mill, but by working together, step by step, we can raise standards across the supply base not just in Meta, but hopefully throughout the industry. Jonathan Escolar Project Manager, Proforest ”
Hållbarhetsrapport 2015/2016
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