How we work Transparency
Building visibility across the palm derivatives supply chain
Transparency is a necessary step in addressing deforestation and human rights pressures in supply chains, particularly as companies face growing expectations to understand where their materials originate and demonstrate responsible sourcing.
For palm derivatives, achieving that visibility is particularly challenging. Complex supply chains, multiple processing stages and numerous intermediaries can separate downstream companies from the refineries, mills and plantations where their materials originate.
ASD helps members tackle this complexity collectively, increasing transparency and consolidating a common framework that enables companies to understand their supply chains and focus efforts where they matter most.
In 2025, 39 members mapped almost 1.2 million tonnes of palm-based materials, with transparency to plantation reaching 78.8% – up 17.6 percentage points year on year.
From mapping to action
Each year, ASD works with participating members and their direct and indirect suppliers to map palm-based volumes upstream, building transparency to refinery, mill and plantation level.
The resulting picture helps members understand potential connections to production areas and identify environmental and social risk hotspots at province, mill and grievance level. Taking a collective approach also creates efficiencies: many members share suppliers and upstream connections, making it possible to align requests and expectations rather than repeatedly approaching the same companies individually.
Crucially, transparency is not the end goal. The information generated through this work provides an important foundation for ASD's wider activities, including risk assessment, deforestation monitoring, grievance management and supplier engagement.
ASD is also making this information easier for members to use. In 2025, a customised suite of digital tools was rolled out through the Tilkal platform, enabling members to explore supply chain data through interactive dashboards, cross-reference it with environmental risk assessments and identify shared leverage points. ASD continues to work with suppliers and the wider sector to improve the quality and availability of information, including at plantation level.
Key activities include:
Mapping members' supply chains to refinery, mill and plantation level
Identifying environmental and social risk hotspots
Engaging suppliers to improve transparency and data quality
Aligning ASD's transparency approach with the broader sector
Connecting supply chain information with ASD's wider risk and grievance work
Read more about the methodology and latest results in ASD’s 2025 Annual Update on Progress.
Talk to us about transparency
Want to understand how ASD can help your business improve transparency and make better use of supply chain data?