As of January 2019, The Forest Trust has become Earthworm Foundation.

TFT is pleased to announce our latest palm oil member, Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC). LDC is one of the world’s leading merchants and processors of agricultural goods, active in over 100 countries. Although palm oil is a smaller part of LDC’s business, it is a key raw material and a focus of LDC’s efforts to achieve responsible sourcing. Palm oil production is frequently associated with environmental, community and worker rights’ abuses. Together, LDC and TFT have embarked on an ambitious workplan to drive good practices. The first step will be to develop a palm oil policy that will build on existing commitments made by LDC.

TFT will then work together with LDC to build and maintain high levels of traceability as an important means of ensuring suppliers to LDC are on a journey to meet the standards in the palm oil policy.

Intensive on-the-ground work will be carried out in the surrounding area supplying the LDC refinery in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan. In particular, TFT will use its Aggregator Refinery Transformation (ART) Plan to encourage responsible palm oil growth in the mills and plantations supplying LDC’s refinery. In close collaboration with LDC, TFT will engage these supply chain players through targeted visits, policy action plans and knowledge-transfer workshops.

East Kalimantan is a significant growth area for the palm oil industry in Indonesia and TFT’s work with LDC will seek to strengthen suppliers’ practices to meet the palm oil policy and zero deforestation commitments made by many companies globally. TFT will also seek to drive a process that includes LDC and other key stakeholders to create an example of change in East Kalimantan and achieve better outcomes for people and the environment within a selected landscape.