Offsetting, Insetting, or Both? Current Trends in Sustainable Palm Oil Certification

Caleb Gallemore and Kristjan Jespersen
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Caleb Gallemore: International Affairs Program, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042, USA
Kristjan Jespersen: Copenhagen Business School, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 19, 1-15

Abstract: Private environmental standards attempt, in part, to internalize environmental externalities. Offsetting firms’ environmental externalities by buying credits is one option. Another is insetting, in which firms attempt to address externalities and provide positive benefits within their own supply chain. These two approaches to internalizing externalities can be in tension, leading toward different types of sustainable markets. Firms adopting private standards as way of avoiding reputational risks may be more likely to support insetting than offsetting strategies if their primary goal is to distinguish themselves from the rest of their industry, but these strategies can also risk separating the market into niche, high-quality producers alongside a low-quality majority. These tensions play out in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), where offsetting and insetting exist side-by-side. Strategic pressures promoting insetting strategies lead firms to exit the system’s offset market, but this comes with the cost of losing some of the flexibility and lowered entry barriers the offset approach offers. New technologies might allow standards to combine the benefits of both approaches, keeping the reputational benefits of insetting and the flexibility of offsetting.

Keywords: palm oil; environmental standards; multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSi); Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO); palm oil; offsetting; insetting; certification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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