WWF-Malaysia, SD Guthrie pilot five-year regenerative palm oil programme in Sabah

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 for the industry.

In a joint statement, it said the programme will be implemented across about 13,000 hectares in Tawau, covering five Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)-certified 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.

Under the collaboration, 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 is intended 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.

“These approaches go beyond RSPO and MSPO certification to deliver measurable improvements for biodiversity, climate resilience and communities, while recognising the economic importance of palm oil to Malaysia and the global market,” she said, adding that transformation requires close collaboration between conservation groups, industry players and value-chain stakeholders.

For 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.

The group has also committed to restoring and conserving 100,000 hectares of land across and beyond its value chain by 2030.

SD Guthrie group managing director Mohd Haris Mohd Arshad said the company looks forward to applying new learnings from the pilot to improve how it interacts with the environment.

“This partnership reflects Guthrie’s commitment to achieve our ‘Beyond Zero’ targets in a practical and credible way, while boosting productive and responsible palm oil operations.

“With this initiative, we will go above and beyond certification requirements, aiming not only to minimise and mitigate our negative impacts, but also ensure that we actively cultivate positive outcomes in the landscapes where we operate.”

Activities under the partnership will cover RSPO- and MSPO-certified plantations and conservation areas, and will be subject to independent audits, risk reviews and WWF governance controls.

As a pilot, the programme could help inform wider industry adoption of regenerative practices and future sector-wide engagement.