Indonesian pulp and paper giants APP and APRIL are pushing their green credentials at the Paris climate summit amid claims that some companies are exploiting the summit for ‘greenwashing.’
“Companies are looking at the climate conference as a business opportunity, using it as a way to make themselves look ‘green’ while continuing with business as usual,” said Pascoe Sabido of environmental group Corporate Europe Observatory.
APP (Asia Pulp and Paper) and APRIL (Asia Pacific Resources International Ltd.) have come under intense scrutiny in the past decade over logging practices and both have announced major sustainability initiatives in Paris.
In a joint statement with federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt, Aida Greenbury, MD of Sustainability at APP, said she would chair a private sector roundtable to harness expertise on protecting high value rainforest ecosystems in the region.
“I believe economic development can exist in harmony with efforts to protect and restore rainforests within the Asia-Pacific region,” she said. “This confidence comes from my own experience and journey taken by Asia Pulp & Paper Group, one of the world’s largest paper and pulp producers, from a previous reliance on natural forests to sourcing 100% of our fibre from plantation wood almost three years ago.
“The roundtable to the Asia-Pacific Rainforest Recovery Plan is a real opportunity to contribute to processes that can positively impact the lives of hundreds of millions of people, restore the health and wellbeing of entire eco-systems and bring numerous species back from the brink of extinction,” Greenbury said.
The Asia-Pacific region is home to one of the three largest rainforest basins in the world.
Hunt described the initiative as a world-first approach to understanding and managing the conservation of forest ecosystems in the Asia-Pacific. “Having a person of the calibre of Aida Greenbury as chair gives me great confidence that the roundtable will make a huge contribution to our goals to reduce rainforest loss in some of the most important forest areas in the world. Any serious effort to address deforestation must engage with the private sector. We need to better understand the drivers of deforestation and seek out the best ideas for continuing economic growth while preserving these special places,” he said.
April Group last week announced it would spend $136.8 million (US$100 million) over the next ten years on conservation and double its peatland restoration program to 150,000 hectares.
The announcement, made in the Indonesian Pavilion at the COP21 climate change summit, “illustrates how private sector organizations can support climate goals not just in terms of pledges but by going beyond them and actually putting resources on the table,” said Tony Wenas, MD, April Group Indonesia Operations.
The increased commitment to Riau Ecosystem Restoration (RER) is believed to be the biggest investment by a private sector company in a single eco-restoration project in Indonesia and covers restoration, protection and management. April said the RER restoration area has been largely protected from burning during the latest fire and haze season, one of the worst to have hit Southeast Asia, “which indicates the effectiveness of April’s landscape approach, supporting the case for further investment.”
Huge forest fires that continue to burn in Indonesia are on track to become the worst on record, according to NASA. 19 people have died and half a million cases of respiratory tract infections have been reported. The Indonesian government said financial damage could be as high as $47 billion.
In September, Indonesian police arrested seven executives in connection with the fires, including a senior executive from Bumi Mekar Hijau (BMH), which supplied Jakarta-based APP, according to a report in The Guardian newspaper.