One of the world’s largest paper companies has fallen out with WWF, the global environmental network, over its new sustainability action plan, which the conservation group claims is inadequate.
The row highlights the difficulties that can arise when companies try to set social and environmental goals in partnership with a non-governmental organization.
Indonesia-based Asia Pulp & Paper and WWF last summer agreed to work together on a policy of obtaining wood from sustainable sources in the Far East. WWF has now walked away from the agreement, saying the 12-year action plan at the heart of the partnership does not adequately address the company’s social and environmental impacts.
WWF says one of the main stumbling blocks is the company’s stated intention in the plan to clear 180,000 hectares (445,000 acres) of Sumatran natural forest over the next two years. It says APP should increase its use of managed plantations more quickly, but the company replies this would be impractical.
In WWF’s view, the plan had ‘fallen short on several counts’, mainly by failing to protect forest of high conservation value and to allow for third-party mediators to resolve land disputes. It is also concerned that future assessments of the impact of cutting down trees will focus too much on the impact on people and not enough on watersheds, the climate and endangered species.
‘They have failed to deliver on some key issues agreed with WWF last August,’ said Chris Elliot, director of the WWF’s International Forest Programme, who has called on APP customers and creditors to put pressure on the company to improve its action plan ‘and to review their business relations if APP fails to do this’.
Arian Ardie, APP’s director of sustainability and stakeholder engagement, said WWF had taken an ‘extreme position’ that was ‘questionable yet understandable, given their mandate and the pressure placed on them by other non-governmental organizations’. He said WFF was demanding APP adhere to standards met by fewer than one in 20 pulp and paper firms. APP says the plan requires it to source all wood supplies from planted, as opposed to primary, forest from 2007. It will invest $7million (£3.9m) during the next five years to protect ‘critical habitats’, set aside tracts of primary forest within its concessions and manage them to prevent illegal logging.
The company says it will introduce a system of ‘wood tracking’ to make sure it uses no illegally logged products, and will educate locals on the social and environmental impact of logging.
It will also create a panel of foresters, scientists and community representatives to consider land claim disputes and assess progress on the plan.
APP, which has 16 manufacturing sites in Indonesia and China and markets its products in 65 countries, has the capacity to make 5.7 million tonnes of paper products a year.
The dispute is not the only recent breakdown in a partnership between a company and an NGO in this field. An alliance on responsible timber production between Danish timber multinational DLH and Greenpeace folded when the environmental group made what the company said were ‘unfair’ allegations on its website (EP4, issue 5, p12). Partnerships in other sectors have run into similar problems.