Today we spoke with Michael Spoor, CEO of Ocho Sur, a pioneer in the Peruvian agribusiness sector. Ocho Sur is a regenerative palm oil company, working to demonstrate a different model for how palm is grown in Peru. Ocho Sur has not expanded the planted footprint of its farms by a single additional hectare since acquiring its estates in 2016 while its productivity and yields have grown substantially during the period . That track record is part of what the company points to when it discusses its position on deforestation-free sourcing, setting a standard it argues shows how large-scale production can coexist with the world’s critically important ecosystems. Operating in the heart of the Ucayali region, Ocho Sur is built around a single conviction: economic transformation in the Amazon is only sustainable if it is built on a foundation of zero crop expansion into new forest and rigorous land stewardship.
That emphasis on independently verifiable standards has relevance well beyond agriculture. At EarlyBird Electric, our mission has always been to give homeowners work they can trust without having to watch over our shoulder while we do it. We know that for most of our customers, the measure of a good job isn’t just that the lights come on, it’s knowing the person who did the work was licensed, background checked, and held to a standard someone other than the company itself is enforcing. However, as more industries face pressure to back up their claims with something more concrete than a promise, the path from “trust us” to “verify us” can feel abstract outside of a trade like ours where licensing makes that standard visible. When a company like Ocho Sur applies that exact logic at industrial scale, building its credibility on third party audits and a public track record instead of self reported claims, it offers a useful blueprint for any operation asking customers to trust work they cannot personally inspect. We sat down with Michael Spoor to explore how Ocho Sur’s regenerative palm oil model turns verification into the foundation of the business, in soil instead of on a service call.
Q1. At EarlyBird Electric, our business depends on homeowners trusting work they usually can’t verify themselves. Ocho Sur is described as a regenerative palm oil company transforming how palm is grown in Peru. What does “regenerative” actually mean in practice, and how is it different from just calling a farm sustainable?
Michael: “Sustainable” is often understood to mean not making things worse. It’s a floor, not a goal. Regenerative is a different standard entirely: it means actively rebuilding the resource base a farm depends on, rather than simply avoiding further damage to it. In practice that means improving soil health over time instead of depleting it, increasing the land’s capacity to capture and hold carbon, and strengthening the biodiversity around the crop rather than treating the surrounding ecosystem as separate from the operation. For us at Ocho Sur, that shows up in specific, auditable practices across our estates in Ucayali, not in a general commitment stated on a website.
That distinction matters because “regenerative” is a claim that should never be taken on faith. It needs to be measured, documented, and checked by someone outside the company making the claim, the same way a homeowner wants an independent inspector to confirm a job was done correctly rather than relying on the contractor’s word alone. If a company can’t point to who’s checking their regenerative claims and how, the term isn’t doing the work it’s supposed to do.
Q2. EarlyBird earns trust through licensing and inspection, not just a promise. How does Ocho Sur make sustainability claims that a homeowner or buyer with no agricultural background can actually verify, rather than just take on faith?
Michael: The short answer is: don’t take our word for it, and we’d rather you didn’t have to. Our entire agricultural operation, both of our productive estates, is certified under the regenagri® Farms standard, audited by Control Union, an independent certifying body with no financial stake in what we say about our own practices. That certification has a defined scope, a validity window, and a public record you can ask about. It isn’t a badge we designed ourselves or a claim that only lives in our own marketing materials.
We think that’s the right bar for any company making an environmental claim, in any industry. Anyone evaluating a sustainability statement, whether it’s about palm oil or an electrical contractor’s licensing, should be asking who issued the credential, what specifically it covers, and whether it’s still current. If a company can’t answer those three questions clearly, the claim probably isn’t standing on much. We’d rather be judged on what an outside auditor found than on how confidently we can describe our own operation.
Q3. Ocho Sur’s estates in Ucayali now carry third-party regenagri® certification across all 12,802 hectares. For readers who, like EarlyBird’s customers, want to know exactly what’s being checked, what does that certification actually audit?
Michael: The certification covers our two productive estates, Zanja Seca and Tibecocha, roughly 12,800 hectares combined in the Ucayali region, and it’s issued by Control Union under the regenagri® Farms standard, currently valid through 2029. The audit itself looks at how the land is actually being farmed: soil health indicators, the operation’s greenhouse gas and carbon management practices, and other environmental measures tied to real, ongoing practices rather than stated intentions or one-time improvements.
What we think matters most here is that the certification applies to the entire operation, not a demonstration plot, a pilot program, or a single estate held up as an example while the rest of the business runs differently. For us, it was important that the certification cover both of our productive estates rather than a demonstration plot or pilot area. That gives someone evaluating Ocho Sur a much more representative picture of how we actually farm. Covering all of our productive land under one standard was a deliberate choice, not a formality.
Q4. A lot of trust problems in any industry, electrical contracting included, come down to the weakest link in the chain, not the biggest player. How does Ocho Sur handle that with smallholders in its supply chain?
Michael: That problem shows up in palm oil in a very specific way. A company can run a clean, well-documented operation on its own land and still have real gaps further elsewhere in the supply chain, particularly where fruit passes from smaller independent growers and intermediaries before it ever reaches a mill. Those parts of the chain are historically the hardest to trace and the easiest for a company to quietly leave out of its public claims.
We work directly with smallholders in our region through our PSF program, aimed at bringing more of that part of the supply chain into a structured, traceable relationship instead of leaving it informal or arm’s length. That includes mapping participating farms, providing technical assistance and building direct relationships with growers so that we increasingly know not simply whom we buy from, but where the fruit was grown. That work is ongoing, and we’re not going to sit here and claim the traceability problem is fully solved for the industry as a whole. We’d rather describe honestly where the harder work still is than round up on progress that is underway.
Q5. EarlyBird’s own customers are increasingly asking about sustainability, from EV charger installs to energy efficiency. Where do you see the palm oil industry heading on verification and transparency, and what role does Ocho Sur want to play in that?
Michael: Consumers and regulators are pushing in the same direction, and it’s a direction we think is overdue: fewer unverified claims, more independent proof. Traceability expectations are getting more specific, audits are getting more rigorous, and companies that can’t back up what they say with documentation from an outside party are going to find it harder to compete, in agriculture or in any other industry making environmental claims to the public.
We’d rather be ahead of that shift than scrambling to catch up to it later. Our goal for Ocho Sur is straightforward: we want the paperwork and third-party verification behind our claims to always be at least as strong as the claims themselves, so that anyone asking hard questions about how our palm oil is actually grown gets a real answer, not a reassurance.