Welcome to the first edition of this quarterly sustainability newsletter of IOI Loders Croklaan.We invite you to take a few minutes and learn more about our journey towards building asustainable, traceable and transparent supply chain. In this newsletter we will also take you toWest Africa to highlight our contributions towards creating a more sustainable shea supply chain.  

Enjoy reading!

Best,

Ben Vreeburg, Sustainability Director, IOI Loders Croklaan

Although shea may be quite unknown to the general public, it is an important raw material for IOI Loders Croklaan. We have been working with shea for more than 50 years. Shea is a wild crop, meaning the shea tree is very difficult to cultivate and is therefore generally only found in the wild. We’re happy to report that when Rainforest Alliance audited our West-African supply chain in 2011 and 2014, their audits revealed no major sustainability issues. In sub-sequent years, we have taken significant steps to make our shea supply chain even moretransparent and sustainable. 

We became the first company to achieve an official sustainability certification for our shea supply chain in the form of the standard ISCC EU certification in 2015. In the following year we earned the additional ISCC PLUS certificate in recognition of our environmental and social efforts.

Expert BlogReaching 98% Traceable Shea NutsBy Joost van Ginneken, Supply Chain Manager Africa, IOI Loders Croklaan

We followed in 2017 with the launch of a comprehensive Shea Sustainability Program. Through this program we commit to achieving a number of ambitious goals. Three goals include: supporting the wellbeing and eco-nomic empowerment of the women who collect shea nuts; minimizing the environmen-tal impact of the shea supply chain through monitoring and reducing of greenhouse gas emissions; and achieving 100% traceability of shea nuts in each source country down to district level by 2018. We’re proud to report that currently 98% of our sourced shea nuts are traceable.

Check our latest palm oil dashboard to find out more about the progress of IOI towards asustainable and traceable palm oil supply chain.Progress highlights include:

• 100% traceable palm oil to mill for IOI LodersCroklaan

• 29% traceability to plantation level

Palm Oil Dashboard

Our Quarterly StoryOur warehouse donation project in Ghana and the shea nut roller distribution in Burkina Faso

In 2016 IOI Loders Croklaan piloted a new shea roller tool to aid women in collecting the shea fruits in the field. It was the first major buyer to introduce the rollers and after the successful trial IOI Loders Croklaan has decided to distribute an additional 100 rollers through its network directly to women across Burkina Faso in 2017.

Read the full stories here.

As an active member of the Global SheaAlliance, IOI Loders Croklaan committed to participate in a warehouse project in Apebikum, Ghana in 2016. The purpose of the project was to construct and donate a warehouse to the local women. This warehouse is used to store kernels, giving the women the possibility to sell larger quantities and earn more per kilo. The dry storage conditions of the warehouse will also lead to better quality of the nuts and the warehouse can generate additional income by renting it out to store other crops off-season.

Our Progress UpdatesIOI Loders Croklaan has the ambition and is committed to becoming a leading company in our industry in terms of sustainability, transparency and traceability and is eager to take adequate actions. Some of our most recent accomplishments:

• IOI Loders Croklaan completed itspeatland exposure mapping and prior-itization in IOI’s Group third-party sup-ply chain. Opportunities for peatlandrestoration or protection are beingdeveloped

• IOI formed a Sustainability AdvisoryPanel to advise and challenge IOI ondelivering its sustainability commit-ments and its ambition. IOI LodersCroklaan is an active member of thepanel

• Completion of the independent LaborRights verification assessment work(desk and field work) by internationalconsultant BSR. Read more in the finalverification report

• Enhancements to our SustainablePalm Oil Policy including a third-partysupplier annex, a commitment to therevised High Carbon Stock Approach(HCSA) as well as commitment to ‘norecruitment fees’ and retention ofworkers passports

• Completion of Grassroots’ and IOI’sjoint field verification (3-7 July) to Sar-awak (Long Teran Kanan) with RSPO asobserver

For the most recent IOI Group’s Sustainability Implementation Plan click here. 

On our Agenda

• Forum for Sustainable Palm Oil (FONAP), Berlin, 27 September 2017Conference attendance

• Innovation Forum: How business can tackle deforestation, London, 14 & 15 November 2017IOI Loders Croklaan speaker: Ben Vreeburg

• European Palm Oil Alliance Conference, (EPOC), Brussels, 23 November 2017Conference attendance

• The 15th Annual Roundtable Conference on Sustainable Palm Oil, Bali, 28-30 November 2017Sustainability update lunch session organized by IOI (29 November 2017)

Please send your feedback and questions to sustainability@ioiloders.com

Best Regards,IOI Loders Croklaan