KUALA LUMPUR, March 1 — Sime Darby Plantation Bhd (SDP) has appointed Impactt Ltd as a third-party assessor to its newly established expert stakeholder human rights assessment commission, to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of SDP’s labour practices across its Malaysian operations.
Impactt, an ethical trade consultancy with specific expertise in detecting and remediating forced labour issues in company supply chains in line with the International Labour Organisation’s 11 indicators of forced labour.
In a filing with Bursa Malaysia today, SDP said the commission shall also comprise a stakeholder consultation panel who will be providing additional views on Impactt’s assessment methodology, lending further credibility to the entire process.
“The stakeholder panel is also expected to review whether or not forced labour indicators are detected within SDP’s operations, and if there are any, to determine how prevalent the issue is.
“The panel will also review any proposed remediation plans recommended for implementation by Impactt, which will offer stakeholders the comfort of independent and transparent oversight,” it said.
SDP said the members of the stakeholder panel include Shift – the leading centre of expertise on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights; Andy Hall – a migrant worker rights activist and human rights researcher; and a representative of the National Union of Plantation Workers (NUPW), the largest trade union for plantation workers in Malaysia.
SDP’s group managing director Mohamad Helmy Othman Basha said establishing the commission was an important and transparent step the company was taking in order to move forward.
“By working with credible experts who are respected for their knowledge and independence, we will be able to establish if and where there are any gaps in our operations and to work quickly to close them.
“Our objective has always been to ensure better outcomes for our workers, which we expect to achieve at the conclusion of this initiative,” he said.
At the same time SDP hope to assure its stakeholders and the public that the trust they have placed in SDP over the years is well placed, he added.
On December 30, 2020, the United States Customs and Border Protection issued a Withhold Release Order (WRO) against SDP’s palm oil based on “information that reasonably indicates the presence of all 11 of the International Labour Organisation’s forced labour indicators in SDP’s production process”.
The WRO was issued after a petition had been filed in April 2020 against SDP, which was then announced in July 2020.
— Bernama
