Stories Behind the numbers: Deuxiemi Natallia Kusumadewi – Charting a course to net zero

For Deuxiemi, known to many as Desi, the fight against climate change is personal.

As GAR’s Head of Climate Change and Bioeconomy, her journey began with a passion with the environment, a topic she explored in her Master’s thesis 12 years ago.

Today, she leads GAR’s mission to reduce emissions towards Net Zero. From identifying carbon hotspots to spearheading carbon removal initiatives, Desi and her team work tirelessly to keep GAR stay on course for carbon neutrality. Read more about her story, the challenges she faces, and the impact of her work beyond the metrics.

Q: Could you briefly describe your current role at GAR and what motivates you to work in this field?

Desi: It’s been a privilege for me to be trusted as Head of Climate Change and Bioeconomy at GAR. It’s a fascinating role where I get to calculate our emissions to and from both Upstream and Downstream operations, and also work with amazing people to develop decarbonisation strategies. We’re talking about creating land-based carbon projects and turning waste into valuable resources.

Palm oil is a crucial player in our economy, but like any other crop, it has an environmental impact. That’s why I’m so passionate about making it a net zero waste industry. Climate change has always been a cause I care deeply about – it was even my Master’s thesis topic!

The chance to truly make a difference is what motivates me. I want to help GAR become a leader in climate action and waste reduction. It’s a big challenge, but one I’m excited to tackle alongside a fantastic team.

Q: What key numbers or metrics are your focus and why is tracking this progress important for GAR’s sustainability goals?

Desi: The saying “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” is key. For GAR to be truly sustainable, we need to understand where we stand. That means tracking things like our emissions – basically, our environmental footprint. Once we have that number, we can set and track clear goals to reduce it.

But tracking progress isn’t just about ticking boxes. It’s about continuous improvement. By monitoring our performance, we can identify areas where we can be more efficient, explore innovative technologies, and find smarter ways to manage emissions, maybe even lead to cost savings and new revenue streams. This keeps us accountable and helps us stay ahead of the curve on climate action.

Q: What specific projects or initiatives are you working on to help achieve these goals?

Desi: We have a detailed roadmap to reach our goals, involving tackling emission hotspots and finding ways to capture carbon. We call it our “decarbonisation strategy”, our game plan for exploring solutions to lock away and reduce carbon in the environment. This will apply for all entities in which GAR has equity of 50 percent or above.

For Upstream, this means building more biogas plants to reduce emissions and capture methane from Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME). Currently, we have methane capture at seven mills, and three more mills will have these facilities by 2025.

Q: What challenges have you encountered in achieving these milestones, and how have you addressed them?

Desi: Let’s be honest, cutting emissions is a challenge for any company. Top challenges are figuring out where to even start, what to measure against, and lack of support from relevant stakeholders. These are what make it a complex task.

But GAR gets it. The leadership team has responded to it by committing to the Agriculture Sector Roadmap to 1.5°C at COP 27 as well as integrating the “Net Zero Emissions by 2050” target in our newly endorsed Sustainability Framework.

We’re also working with a great team to establish a baseline for our emissions and create a roadmap to reach net zero emissions by 2050. It’s a big puzzle, but by involving everyone at GAR from the start, we’re building a sense of ownership and getting everyone invested in this effort.

Another challenge is the perception that climate action is just an added cost. But the truth is, if we innovate and think outside the box, we can often find cost-saving opportunities and even new revenue streams. It’s not always easy, but we’re definitely on the right track.

Q: Can you share a personal story or lesson that illustrates the real-world impact of these efforts beyond the numbers?

Desi: Numbers are important, but they aren’t the end goal. When I joined GAR last year, I was lucky enough

This exercise has helped us understand where our focus should be, and most importantly, gain buy-in from stakeholders.

This reinforced a powerful lesson: sustainability isn’t a one-person show. Nor is it just the job of the person with “sustainability” in their title. Putting into effect the solution often is complex cross-divisional work that needs to be driven by operations. The sustainability team is more of a matchmaker, consultant and the centre of excellence. Take for example POME. While it is classified as an upstream emission, all possible solutions need multiple parties – such as the mills, the transport team, downstream operations and even customers.

By heavily involving all arms of operations from the start, we got a deep understanding of where our emissions come from and how we can tackle them. Plus, we even discovered ways to make our efforts pay off financially. It’s good for planet, and also good for business.

Q: What future goals do you have for continued progress in these numbers?

Desi: Looking ahead, I want GAR to be known as a climate leader in making the palm industry more sustainable and climate friendly. It’s a big goal, but I believe we can get there by improving our plans to reduce emissions and showing that we’re serious about fighting climate change.

Many of our customers are already making pledges to reduce their GHG footprint, especially in their palm supply chain. This creates a real opportunity for us to team up with them in a long-term agreement that reward efforts in cutting emissions with premium pricing or other perks. Hopefully this can be a win-win, because financially-sound sustainable practices are also key to making real progress on decarbonisation.

We’re also looking at bioeconomy as a way to squeeze more value out of our waste and turn it into profit while lowering emissions. It’s not a simple fix, because we need to get a clear picture of where our emissions are coming from, pinpoint the areas with the biggest impact, and map out different ways to cut the emission down. Once we have a plan, we’ll need all hands-on deck across GAR to test these plans and put the best ones into action.

On top of that, we’ll be talking to folks outside GAR too, like technology companies, customers, and banks, to see if they can offer technical help or funding for specific ways to cut emissions.

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Desi is just one of our “People Behind the Numbers”. Read more stories here.

Explore the full GAR’s Sustainability Report 2023 and discover how we’re transforming sustainable palm oil.

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