Final Statement Milieudefensie/Friends of the Earth Netherlands, WALHI/Friends of the Earth Indonesia and SDI/Friends of the Earth Liberia vs ING

The Dutch NCP published a Final Statement on the specific instance of Milieudefensie/Friends of the Earth Netherlands, WALHI/Friends of the Earth Indonesia and SDI/Friends of the Earth Liberia vs ING on April 7, 2022.

The notifications objective was to bring parties to agreement on possible improvements of ING’s due diligence policies and practices regarding palm oil.

It was the NCP’s opinion that this notification merited further consideration and therefore the NCP offered its good offices to both parties (see initial assessment dated 20 January 2020). Both parties accepted the offer but unfortunately the dialogue ended prematurely. With this publication the NCP procedure is concluded.

The NCP will conduct an Evaluation of the Final Statement in the winter of 2022/2023 in order to see whether any of the NCP’s recommendations have led to some kind of follow-up. The NCP recommends that the parties remain in contact about:

• the question at what point being “directly linked” to an adverse impact, such as described in the three cases of the complaint, becomes a contribution to adverse impacts, according to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises;
• what constitutes proper due diligence to identify, prevent and mitigate adverse impacts in this respect; and, more specifically,
• engagement with (or disengagement from) large-scale palm oil production.

The Evaluation will also be published.