Retailers and food companies seeking to source sustainable palm oil should find the process far easier from this week after the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) launched a new certification label for products that meet environmental standards.

Meeting in Kuala Lumpur this week, the trade group has reportedly agreed to approve the draft criteria for sustainable palm oil that would ensure that firms wishing to label their product as sustainable would have to adhere to a number of environmental and ethical best practices, including compliance with all local laws, sustainable agricultural methods and ethical employment policies.

Developed by palm oil producers in conjunction with food companies such as Unilever and Procter & Gamble and environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth (FoE) and WWF, the certification scheme is now expected to be put in place by early next year.

The move is a response to growing pressure from retailers for sustainable palm oil, following evidence that booming demand for the product has contributed directly to deforestation of tropical rainforests.

Earlier this week, Sainsbury's vowed to ban the use of unsustainable palm oil and Asda and the Body Shop have similarly pledged to move towards more sustainable palm oil. But up to now turning these pledges into a reality has proved difficult as there has been no agreed international standard for assessing whether palm oil has been grown on land freed up through forest clearance.

However, environmental groups have given the scheme a muted welcome, claiming it does not go far enough.

According to reports in The Guardian, Friends of the Earth threatened to walk out of the roundtable talks after accusing the Malaysian and Indonesian governments of using the voluntary scheme as an excuse not to legislate to protect rainforests.

There have also been questions raised about how the certification scheme will be enforced and whether palm oil attaining the label can truly be classified as sustainable. Recent reports from Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have both revealed that palm oil producers currently signed up to the RSPO are still engaged in illegal forest clearance, while environmentalists have claimed that the standards do not require a moratorium on all forest clearance.

Speaking to The Guardian, Friends of the Earth campaigner Hannah Griffiths said: "The two major problems with the RSPO certification scheme are that it is very difficult to enforce and it does allow some deforestation to take place. We want no further deforestation for palm oil production."