GVL is a profit-oriented long-term investor; whose founders and investors hold the deep belief that Oil Palm development can and should be carried out responsibly and sensitively. Such development will ensure opportunity for environmental conservation and prosperity for local communities, while working with key stakeholders ensuring stability, sustainability and investment returns.

GVL has planted approximately 18,000 hectares of high quality Oil Palm in Liberia. We currently employ approximately 3,300 Liberians, nearly 40% of which are women. Our goal is to employ as many as 40,000 when at full operational capacity. Currently 98% of our staff is Liberian; the remaining two percent come from Europe, America and Asia

Sustainable Oil Palm development and other large-scale agricultural development will be a central pillar in rebuilding Liberia’s rural economy and reducing poverty. In the rural southeast where economic opportunities are minimal and more than 80% of the population lives below the poverty line, GVL is creating employment and providing new sources of permanent, stable income and career advancement. We are also committed to bring infrastructural, education and health care to the communities and to help lift the overall standard of living, while helping to reduce rural poverty in the region.

GVL is a Liberian company, incorporated in Liberia and is a subsidiary of the Verdant Fund LP (“Verdant”). Verdant’s lead investor is Golden Agri-Resources (“GAR”).

e are committed to benefiting the communities in which we work. Local community members around our developed sites today collect more than USD 3 million in wages, rice and other benefits every year In addition to paying rent on used or unused land, in accordance with the concession agreement, we contribute to local and Palm Oil Development Funds and taxes in the following ways:

Community Development: We pay every year 5 USD per hectare of developed land into a Community Development Fund, which is administered by local community appointees and GVL.

Oil Palm Fund: ½% of annual sales of Oil Palm products to an Oil Palm Development Fund, which is set up to further these Liberian industries.

GVL will continue to develop its concession, with the approval of local communities. The actual acreage to be developed will depend on the outcome of negotiations and discussions with local communities and farmers.

GVL notes that GAR is an investor in the Verdant Fund LP, a private equity fund which owns GVL, and that GAR adopts a Social and Environmental Policy (GSEP) for all the plantations that it owns, manages or invests in regardless of the stake.

As such, and in addition to its commitments to develop following RSPO Principles and Criteria, GVL will follow GAR’s GSEP.

At GVL we work closely with TFT in order to implement best practice in the production of sustainable Palm Oil. We believe we have made good progress in implementing methods and innovations developed by our teams or, recommended by TFT. We have addressed concerns at water and gravesites and have issued new standard operating practices for community engagement.

Our concession agreement signed in 2010 identifies these counties as areas we may work. Our objective is to develop 500,000 acres of company oil palm and a minimum of 100,000 acres additional smallholder, outgrowers and community oil palm. GVL will not touch dense forests, community farmlands or sacred sites, such as burial grounds, graves or shrines.  Even outside such areas, the Southeast has huge areas of land that are not productively utilized today. For each county we work we must obtain local community consent and permission before any work or development can begin. Currently we work only in Sinoe and Grand Kru Counties.

Yes, this corresponds to two planting cycles, extendable by one more planting cycle, if we meet key success criteria. The development plan is in the concession agreement. It’s between 12-15 years for cycle completion for planting, then replanting at year(s) 25-30 after planting. Exact timing will depend on, communities making land available, when and where and on natural conditions such as weather patterns or cycles.

In 2012, GVL engaged The Forest Trust (TFT) to conduct a multi-stakeholder assessment of its community engagement processes and to recommend where it can improve implementation of its policies and procedures. GVL published the report by TFT on its independent assessment of GVL’s community engagement on its website on 16 Mar 2013.

In 2018, GVL invited TFT to do a field assessment on its sustainability policies and practices. TFT has submitted a series of actions to strengthen these and these are being implemented in GVL’s Sustainability Action Plan which was announced in July 2018.

GVL, Greenpeace and TFT teams have done extensive analysis work to adapt the HSCA toolkit to African and Liberian conditions, including the social factors.

Our first harvest took place in 2016 and our first mill became fully operational in 2017