In Indonesia, Sime Darby is involed in a longstanding land grabbing conflict with the Indigenous communities of Kerunang-Entapang in the plantations of its subsidiary PT. MAS, in West Kalimantan. The communities have filed a complaint at the RSPO in 2012, which as of April 2017, is yet to be resolved.

NGOs raised serious concerns about the impact on forests and local communities of its operations in Liberia. Lack of consultation during initial agreement has resulted in continued tension between Sime Darby and local communities. Unresolved issues remain six years after community negotiations started. Full concession development would require negotiations with an additional 55 communities. This could entail decades of negotiations with uncertain outcomes, and could result in significant delays to project development.

There has not been any recent public evidence of large-scale deforestation by Sime Darby in Asia, and Sime has made significant progress in achieving RSPO certification for its Southeast Asian operations. However, NGOs have raised serious concerns about the impact on forests and local communities of its operations in Liberia. The company has  signed a 63-year concession agreement in 2009 for 220,000 ha of land to be developed into oil palm and rubber plantations in Liberia. An additional 44,000 ha are to be developed under an outgrower scheme. To date, Sime Darby has planted 10,411 ha palm oil and 107 ha rubber under this agreement. Sime Darby’s undeveloped land bank in Liberia contains high-density forest; thus 45% cannot be developed responsibly.

Sime Darby led resistance to industry adoption of a "No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation" policy. Instead, Sime Darby has led an initiative to create a so-called palm oil manifesto that would attempt to change the definition of what forests merit protection under palm oil industry forest conservation policies. It was only after significant pressure that Sime Darby announced in September 2014 an immediate moratorium on the clearance of high carbon stock (HCS) forests, whilst a study that aims to establish a threshold for defining what constitutes HCS forests was being carried out.