Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the (un)intended consequences of voluntary sustainability certification, by using a case study of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil in Papua New Guinea.

Paper long abstract:

The past decades have seen the emergence of voluntary 'sustainable' certifications to improve agricultural production, which may be understood as market-based responses to environmental, social, and economic concerns. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is a clear example of how the global palm oil industry has responded to environmental and social allegations by civil society groups. Yet, voluntary sustainability certifications do not benefit all value chain actors equally and may imply unintended consequences, raising important distributional questions. This article poses two questions: Who benefits and who does not benefit from sustainability certifications? What are the broader unintended consequences of such certification for government policies and capacities?

By using a case study of Papua New Guinea, this paper argues that the RSPO has had limited success in contributing to local economic development. I question the broader sustainability claim of the industry by evaluating the (unintended) consequences of the RSPO on the institutional framework (see e.g. Cramb and Curry 2012, 234). Specifically, I assess how the RSPO's implementation has influenced policy making, arguing that it has exacerbated pre-existing weaknesses in regulative state capacity and potentially undermined state governance due to efforts to minimize the state's involvement. I conclude that the RSPO has so far proven to be largely ineffective in improving meaningful 'sustainable' development, potentially undermining the development of sustainable state policy making. The results suggest that voluntary private forms of governance such as the RSPO are not adequate to lead to meaningful sustainable, equitable and broad-based development.