Watchdog's new chief says high prices can support greener palm oil

Joseph D'Cruz (JD), appointed as chief executive officer of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in March, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that current high prices mean "frankly, producers have no real excuse as to why they cannot afford to go down the sustainability path".

KUALA LUMPUR: Palm oil producers profiting from a global price boom should use the opportunity to ramp up efforts to make the business more sustainable and head off rising risks of forests being cleared for plantations, the new head of the industry's watchdog said.

Prices for palm oil - found in everything https://news.trust.org/item/20180329010146-ye2ye from margarine to biscuits, and soap to soups - have hit near-record highs in recent months, partly due to food-supply constraints linked to the Russia-Ukraine war.