KUALA LUMPUR: World Wide Fund for Nature, Malaysia (WWF-Malaysia) and SD Guthrie Bhd
have launched a five-year regenerative agriculture pilot for palm oil in Sabah, marking the first initiative of its kind in the industry.
In a joint statement, they said the programme will be implemented across about 13,000 ha in Tawau, covering five Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil-certified SD Guthrie estates.
This initiative also serves as a pilot under WWF’s Reconnect Borneo Initiative, a regional effort aimed at restoring ecological connectivity through a network of wildlife corridors.
Both parties will work to establish a wildlife corridor, strengthen biodiversity conservation, and implement WWF’s global regenerative palm oil framework under real operating conditions.
The initiative aims to move beyond certification, with progress measured through biodiversity connectivity, ecosystem services, soil health, and social outcomes, while maintaining long-term productivity.
WWF-Malaysia chief executive officer Sophia Lim said the partnership represents a decisive step towards delivering landscape-scale biodiversity and climate-positive outcomes in a priority area of Sabah.
For SD Guthrie, the collaboration reinforces its “Beyond Zero” sustainability framework, which targets the introduction of a regenerative agriculture framework for the palm oil sector by 2028.
