Levi's Announces New Forest Product Policy

Asia Pulp and Paper is having a hard time holding onto customers these days. With the release of its forest products purchasing policy, Levi Strauss & Company has become the latest major brand to ban business with Asia Pulp and Paper (APP). This comes on the heels of a major public cancellation with APP affiliate Mercury Paper at the end of December by Kroger, America’s largest grocery chain.

So why is everyone running from APP?

APP has a nasty penchant for clearcutting Indonesia’s rainforests and disrespecting communities’ rights — and these abuses are proving to be bad for business. Despite the company’s deep pockets for slick PR greenwash campaigns, its tactics aren’t fooling a lot of customers. Over the past several years, a growing list of major companies have dropped their contracts with APP, including major US book publishers Scholastic, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster, leading toy companies Mattel, Hasbro and Lego, fashion giants Gucci and Tiffany and Co., and office supply stores Staples and Office Depot.

Levi’s new global policy not only excludes controversial fiber supplies linked to rainforest destruction (like that from APP), it also proactively maximizes the best environmental fibers available. For paper, it mandates that all paper purchased by the company be at least 30% post-consumer recycled content, with a goal of 100% whenever possible. When post-consumer recycled is not available, wood fiber must be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.

Levi’s and other responsible corporate customers are implementing forward-looking policies that maximize the best environmental fiber and eliminate controversial sources. Meanwhile, reform for APP’s clearcutting ways still seems to be in the distant future. For the time being, it’s hard to imagine this list of APP customer cancellations doing anything but growing.

Kellogg’s:

Despite officially joining in 2008, Kellogg’s doesn’t appear to have ever completed the five basic questions in its membership application. We were unable to find their required annual progress reports, according to the minutes of last year’s General Assembly they did not vote on the resolutions, and weren’t sighted at last year’s RSPO conference at all. Again this year they were nowhere to be found. Kellogg’s told the public in its recent announcement:

“As a socially responsible company, Kellogg is committed to conducting our business in a way that reduces our environmental impact,” said Celeste A. Clark, Ph.D., Chief Sustainability Officer, Kellogg Company.

Apparently Kellogg’s commitment doesn’t extend to engaging with or verifying the effectiveness of the RSPO. Given that it sources palm oil from Cargill, a company with no safeguards on the palm oil it trades, this seems like a pretty flimsy guarantee to customers that the company takes its sustainability commitment seriously.

Girl Scouts:

Following extensive public concern about the use of palm oil in their iconic Girl Scout cookies, Girl Scouts USA recently made a “sustainable” palm oil commitment to cover its use of palm oil in dozens of popular Girl Scout cookie recipes. Despite having committed to the public the intent to “become affiliate members of the RSPO” and use the RSPO to guarantee that its products are not linked to rainforest destruction, representatives were nowhere to  be found.

In fact, Girl Scouts USA seems to have created a new category of “affiliate membership” that is not one of the 7 official categories of RSPO membership. Hmmm.Perhaps by affiliate membership they mean they are relying on cookie bakers to effectively use their membership in the RSPO to guarantee that palm oil is not connected to rainforest destruction and orangutan habitat loss. Unfortunately we couldn’t confirm RSPO membership for either ABC Bakers or Weston Foods Limited, and the only Girl Scout cookie baker we did find was Kellogg. Pity given the above.

McDonald’s:

The newest RSPO member missing in action joined in October with great fanfare but was nowhere to be found despite having said:

“Participating in multi-stakeholder engagements such as the RSPO is one way for us to put the power and leadership of McDonald’s behind commitments to continue to source sustainable ingredients such as palm oil,” said Francesca DeBiase, McDonald’s vice president, Worldwide Strategic Sourcing, in a statement. “Sustainability issues as they relate to food are often confusing to consumers, and we can help lead the way by educating our customers on how our food is sourced.”

Missing: McDonalds CEO Jim Skinner

Missing: Kellogg CEO John Bryant

Missing: GSUSA CEO Anna Maria Chavez

If we’re expecting these brands to assure that RSPO certified palm oil is truly responsible, perhaps next year we’ll have to put the photos of these missing companies on the back of milk boxes before the annual RSPO meeting.

Update 11/24/11 9:50am Whose Voices are Missing at the RSPO?

In concluding her plenary presentation yesterday, “A Preliminary consideration of workers and communities,” Toh su Mei from the organization Wild Asia, left participants of the 9^th Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil meeting pondering the lack of representation of workers and smallholders at the conference.

“We are the stakeholders of the palm oil economy, but where are the workers in the room?” Her question to the room brought to light a notable emptiness among RSPO members and RSPO board members: palm oil workers.

Workers at Ledo Lestari palm oil plantation in Borneo. Photo: David Gilbert

There are an estimated 2 million Indonesians working in Malaysia for a variety of industries. Indonesia placed a moratorium on sending workers to Malaysia following widely reported abuse of Indonesian workers in the neighboring country where many are undocumented and work in palm oil plantations, construction and as domestic workers. But after two years of tough negotiations, involving the top leaders of both countries, Indonesia and Malaysia eventually overcame the protracted deadlock on the sending of unskilled Indonesian workers to Malaysia.

Migrant workers from Indonesia working on palm oil plantations may have their passports held and may be subject to multi-year contracts that push the workers into debt and prevent escape. As I documented just over a year ago, slave and child labor on palm oil plantations is a severe reality in Indonesia and Malaysia. So sever, in fact, that recently the U.S. Department of Labor added palm oil cultivated in Indonesia to its List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor.

Toh su Mei explained that migrant workers often aren’t allowed to organize or join unions or risk getting terminated. She encouraged the RSPO to reach out to local and migrant workers upon which the oil palm industry relies and to engage them in decision making processes that ultimately affect them but currently are run behind closed doors.

According to a 2009 publication on the Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants, here is summary of the issues facing migrant workers in Malaysia.

If the RSPO fails to meaningfully involve the workers it relies on to address these issues, another weakness will be added to a system that is already missing key safeguards relating to the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions, one that still fails to adequately implement key elements of the principles and criteria relating to social conflict and the conversion of natural forests.

Orangutans, threatened with extinction by the palm oil industry, are humankinds closest relatives

Original Post: Malaysia Minister Slams NGOs for Using Science that Documents High Risk of Orangutan Extinction

On Tuesday, November 22, the Malaysian Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities, a man named Tan Sri Bernard Giluk Dompok, delivered the Official Address in the Opening Ceremony of the Rountable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) conference. A significant portion of his comments expressed concern and disapproval of the style of campaigning RAN and other NGO’s use to draw attention to the social and environmental problems with palm oil.

But Mr. Dompok did more than simply acknowledge the campaigns of those concerned with deforestation, climate change, and declines in orangutan populations. He decided to snub science in front of 1,000 delegates from 34 countries, claiming that a 2007 report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), documenting the high risk of orangutan extinction due to deforestation, was baseless:

The development of the oil palm industry has never been without challenges. Environmental and consumer advocacy groups, particularly in Europe and US have stepped up claims that the oil palm sector is destroying large tracts of forests and encroaching on the natural habitats of endangered species. For example, a report entitled, “The Last Stand of the Orang Utan: State of Emergency,” claims that oil palm plantations are expanding so rapidly in the rainforests of Malaysia that almost no virgin forest will remain by 2022. It has been also claimed that an equivalent of 300 soccer fields are deforested every hour for oil palm plantations. I am of the view all these allegations are baseless and based on the premise of fear on the competitiveness of palm oil.

This statement comes just a week after the Malaysian Government announced its plans to spend $7.7 million (24 million ringgit) in 2011 and 2012 to counter criticism over the social and environmental impact of palm oil.

Directly after Mr. Dompok’s speech, I snuck into the Press Conference and sat in the front row. On camera, I asked Mr. Dompok why the Malaysian Government needed to spend over $7 million if the Malaysian palm oil industry was indeed so “sustainable.” His answer? That Malaysia needs to counter misleading NGO campaigns based on fear.

Indeed, the specter of the extinction of humankind’s closest relative, the orangutan, does elicit a sense of fear in many around the world. A comprehensive new study finds that orangutan populations in Indonesian Borneo are being diminished at unsustainable rates. The results indicate orangutans may be headed toward extinction. The study, published in PLoS One, is based on 18 months of interviews with nearly 7,000 people across 687 villages in areas where orangutans persist in East, Central, and West Kalimantan. The research involved 18 NGOs, including local and international organizations.

In a recent interview, Dr. Marc Ancrenanz of HUTAN notes that oil palm plantations cover a staggering 14,000 square kilometers of Sabah, one of the two states in Malaysian Borneo and the number one producer of Malaysian palm oil. This is equal to 20 Singapores planted solely with palm!

In the same interview, Dr. Marc Ancrenanz mentions that genetic studies in Sabah show that the orangutan population has declined by 50% to 90% over the past few decades. This severe decline is due to several causes, such as hunting and the illegal pet trade, but the foremost reason is forest loss as it is cut down and converted to agriculture.

So you be the judge. Do you trust the comments made by the Malaysian Minister following the government’s $7 million investment in a public relations campaign, or do you trust scientists working to save the endangered orangutan before it is too late? In my experience, when companies or governments spend $7,000,000 on public relations to counter science, it’s usually because they have something to cover up.

Well, in honor of RAN’s big annual bash, Revel, the Yes Men put together this mini-documentary about how it all went down. You have to see it to believe how arrogant Chevron really is: Not only did the company apparently believe we were all stupid enough to fall for such blatant greenwashing of its horrendous environmental and human rights history (prompting us to create ChevronThinksWereStupid.org), but even reached out to green bloggers and street artists to help out. Those folks were horrified, of course, and came to us to help completely deflate Chevron’s new PR campaign.

Anyway, check out the video below — and then stay tuned, because we’re going to be having some more fun with Chevron’s PR efforts in the near future.

Daisy Troop #42, Seacliff, NY. Photo: Diana Lenkler

After four years of savvy campaigning by Girl Scout activists Madison Vorva and Rhiannon Tomtishen, Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) has finally acknowledged its role in rainforest destruction by releasing a commitment regarding its use of palm oil in its iconic cookies.

Unfortunately, the statement on palm oil just released is a small step in the right direction at a time when we need leaps forward to prevent the imminent extinction of orangutans and the wholesale destruction of some of the world’s most biologically diverse and carbon rich forests.

The bottom line remains: Girl Scouts USA cannot guarantee that the box of Thin Mints you buy doesn’t contain palm oil from rainforest destruction.

Rainforest Action Network, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Madi and Rhiannon remain concerned and have issued a joint press statement explaining why the announcement by GSUSA, while a good start, is insufficient to sever the unacceptable connection between beloved Girl Scout cookies and tropical deforestation.

Rainforest Action Network asks Girl Scouts USA to instruct their suppliers, especially agribusiness giant Cargill, to adopt basic safeguards around greenhouse gas emissions, human rights and biodiversity loss, and not outsource their values by relying on the inadequate standards of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.

Troop #9045 in Central Texas. Photo: Troop Leader Jennifer McNichols

We believe Girl Scouts USA must do more than simply “work with its bakers.” In its statement, GSUSA acknowledges that while the quantity of palm oil they use is relatively small, “their voice is big.” We believe the organization has a responsibility to use that voice to help convince Cargill and other suppliers to offer guarantees to American consumers that abuses such as slave labor will no longer end up in Girl Scout cookies, or any other product. Cargill is buying its oil from the likes of Wilmar, KLK and IOI, companies connected to some of the very worst examples of corporate environmental destruction and human rights abuses. And this means Girl Scout cookies are implicated too.

Girl Scouts USA’s palm oil announcement states:

Beginning with the 2012-13 cookie season, each cookie box will include a GreenPalm logo as a symbol of Girl Scouts’ commitment to address concerns about the deforestation of sensitive lands currently caused by the production of palm oil.

Green Palm Certificates are sold to companies by the plantation that grew the palm oil. The company then goes and buys palm oil from anyone at the cheapest price. For this reason, Green Palm Certificates are a step in the right direction because they reward growers for following basic safeguards, but they do not ensure that the palm oil used in products is not linked to controversy or is driving up demand for palm oil connected to rainforest destruction and human rights violations.

As great as it is that Girl Scouts USA will be addressing the issue of palm oil in the coming cookie season, we strongly urge GSUSA to refrain from simply using its purchase of Green Palm Certificates to greenwash its image, and instead to consider implementing a plan of action to ensure its cookies are truly free of ingredients sourced from rainforest destruction. It would be very misleading for young girls across the country selling Girl Scout cookies to make claims of “sustainable palm oil” in Thin Mints when in actuality the cookies are continuing to drive deforestation and orangutan extinction.

Malaysia Sustainable Palm Oil. Photo: astromediashop

As I reported on Monday, the Malaysian government—hand in hand with the country’s largest palm oil companies—is attempting to undermine the RSPO’s “sustainable palm oil” certification standard by creating its own certification. Problem is—the Malaysian palm oil industry’s version of “sustainable palm oil” is pure greenwash which is extremely problematic for the companies and consumers demanding real standards of sustainability that are based on sound science. The entire notion of determining a baseline of “sustainability” for forest preservation will be lost.

Yesterday’s Malaysian paper StarBiz update on the process does not bode well for the species, communities and forests of Indonesia that are most threatened by the expansion of palm oil plantations. It reported that the “draft on the Malaysia Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification scheme is currently being formulated with the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) earmarked as the main moderator.” Does it seems strange to anyone else that Malaysia’s Palm Oil Board – in charge of advocating for palm oil expansion at any cost – is formulating a certification scheme for sustainable palm oil? Where are the scientists, agronomists and ecologists?

The article continues:

“the [Malaysian] Government is serious about introducing its national green palm oil certification scheme as an alternative to the current voluntary Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification…this is an opportunity for Malaysia to tell the world that its oil palms are grown in a sustainable manner and do not involve the clearing of virgin forest.”

Malaysia wants to tell the world that land conversion for its oil palm “doesn’t involve the clearing of virgin forest?” Clearly the preservation of natural forests is important, but what about the Free, Prior, Informed Consent (FPIC) of its Indigenous peoples and forest communities? What about its critical habitat for endangered species like the orangutan? What about its other forested areas that are not natural forest land anymore but secondary forests—key habitat for endangered species and diverse forest peoples? I think Malaysia has more at stake that it cares to admit. Watering down criteria for the “sustainability” of its palm oil plantations could turn out to be nothing short of devastating for the people and wildlife of Malaysia.

APP Greenwash Video

APP managed to get its corporate logo in almost every shot as the majestic animal was drugged, caged, transported, radio collared and released to great media fanfare. Indonesia’s powerful Forestry Minister pulled the chain to lift the cage door himself. The company blames the Sumatran tiger’s critically endangered status on illegal poachers. They named their captive PR prop “Putri,” Indonesian for Princess.

Nice try APP, but any scientist (not on the company’s payroll) will confirm that the real reason behind the tiger’s decline to the precipice of extinction is the clearing and conversion of its rainforest habitat, primarily by pulp and paper companies, led by APP.

Thankfully, CBS news includes substantial quotes and counter-spin provided by Greenpeace instead of just repeating the companies bold attempt at greenwashing its image. Still, this incident reflects the increasingly large investment APP is pouring into sophisticated PR firms who use slick language about ‘sustainability’ and stunts like this to obfuscate and distract from the company’s shameful environmental record.

Shame on you APP. If more of the crucial habitat that tigers need were left intact, they would not be forced into the biologically impoverished pulpwood plantations in search of food in the first place.

One of many awesome Chevron spoof posters that are just waiting to inspire you at ChevronThinksWereStupid.org

Chevron’s attempts to greenwash its image while doing nothing to take responsibility for its environmental and human rights abuses around the globe continue unabated. So we decided to re-launch ChevronThinksWereStupid.org last week to provide concerned citizens like you with a fun and engaging platform to call out Chevron’s misleading PR campaigns.

At virtually the same time that the re-launch was happening, something quite unusual happened: An oil company admitted liability for an oil spill it had caused in a developing country. No, not Chevron in Ecuador. Shell in Nigeria. Shell will likely end up paying several hundred million dollars to clean up its oil spills in the Niger Delta.

It just so happens that Chevron operates in the Niger Delta as well, and has caused its share of environmental degradation and human suffering. Has Chevron taken responsibility for the damage it has done in the Niger Delta? No. But the company did give away a bunch of mosquito nets in Angola.

We’re not making this up – as part of its plan to prove what a fantastic corporate citizen it is, Chevron gave away a few thousand mosquito nets. To our knowledge, mosquito nets are capable of absorbing absolutely none of the oil Chevron has spilled — and the impacts of oil operations in some parts of Angola are so severe that most of the sand on the shores is black in color and the beaches cannot be used.

Chevron has promised funding to restore the damaged ecosystem, but has yet to act — except for donating those nets.

This is exactly the type of preposterous greenwash and misleading corporate PR that we wanted to call out when we teamed up with the Yes Men and Amazon Watch to spoof Chevron’s “We Agree” campaign. We launched ChevronThinksWereStupid.org so that you could join in on the spoofing fun, and we’ve decided to extend our call for submissions indefinitely.

We’ve assembled some resources to help you call out Chevron’s mosquito nets as the blatant corporate greenwash that they are. Have fun!

Malaysia's Commodities Minister Bernard Dompok

If a massive palm oil company decides that getting its plantations certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is, well, just too hard, what do you think happens?

The Malaysian government comes to the rescue, of course, and comes up with a solution that will allow IOI — the largest palm oil plantation company in Malaysia — and a concerned Australian food industry to cover their asses by obtaining the green stamp of sustainability with more ease and efficiency.

Like a bad movie that just keeps getting worse, the Malaysian government recently decided to prioritize the expansion of palm oil at any cost by creating its own “sustainable palm oil” certification scheme that is much weaker than even the RSPO.

It seems that in an interesting chain of events, IOI may have found a way to continue undermining Indigenous rights by disregarding the native customary land rights of Long Teran Kenan (LTK). Backed by the Malaysian government, IOI will in effect be able to skirt a severe case of social conflict, and in the process completely undermine the RSPO grievance process, while at the same time managing to sell its palm oil to Australia as “sustainable.” Troubling.

A monoculture palm oil plantation

According to BusinessGreen.com, Bernard Dompok, Malaysia’s commodities minister, said the country’s plan to create its own sustainable palm oil certification scheme “is moving forward after the NGO and industry-backed RSPO reportedly accused Malaysian palm oil producer IOI Corp of violating its certification standards, and suspended plans to certify its plantations. ‘We will go ahead [with plans for a new certification scheme] because the RSPO keeps on changing its goal posts on how to produce sustainable palm oil,’ said Dompok.”

Wait a minute, let me get this straight: the RSPO — widely criticized for failing to enforce key social and environmental safeguards — is being too tough on IOI Group? In reality, as we’ve seen with the IOI case, the RSPO is just starting to flex its enforcement muscle, which has been quite welcomed by social and environmental NGOs. When the RSPO grievance panel swiftly responded to the grievance letter submitted by a dozen concerned NGOs in May and ruled that IOI was in breach of the RSPO Code of Conduct, suspending IOI’s plans to certify its plantations, RAN applauded the RSPO’s action. IOI’s illegal activity continues to drag on as the community of LTK struggles to regain possession of its native land.

Malaysia Under Pressure: Australia's Palm Oil Labeling Bill

Clearly IOI is looking for a free ride. Is the Aussie food industry doing the same thing? According to the Australian food industry, “The best way for Malaysia to counter the rising negative sentiment in Australia towards palm oil is to quickly increase the production of sustainable palm oil. One suggestion is to set a deadline for growers to fully adopt sustainable practices.” With mounting pressure from Australian consumers to label products that contain palm oil, manufacturers are swiftly looking into certified sustainable palm oil.

In Australia’s race to populate its grocery stores with products labeled with “sustainable palm oil,” will it use any discretion or simply lose sight of key social and environmental criteria? To keep Australia from watering down certification schemes for sustainable palm oil, consumers must not fall for Malaysia’s greenwash and demand real standards that are based on sound science.

Concerned that the emergence of competitive standards could make it harder to ensure that palm oil has been sourced from plantations that adhere to demanding environmental standards, RAN will continue working to improve both the standards of RSPO Certification as well as push for increased enforcement of RSPO members. Clearly, the RSPO still has major gaps, but unless we remain committed to improving it we may end up with far weaker and less legitimate certification schemes.

Abandon ship!

You might not believe it, but apparently there is a point beyond which even the palm oil industry isn’t willing to stretch the truth. And Alan Oxley just blew right past it.

Last November, Alan Oxley was called out by a dozen scientists from leading academic and research institutions around the world for promoting industrial logging and oil palm plantations at the expense of the truth. According to those scientists’ analysis, Mr. Oxley lacks credibility and treads “a thin line between reality and a significant distortion of facts.”

This month, he has entire countries banning his rhetoric.

Alan Oxley makes more money than you and your mama combined under the guise of a “non-profit organization” called the World Growth Institute, which supports palm oil industry groups like the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) and its new European lobby arm, the European Palm Oil Council (EPOC), in their mission to paint a bogus picture of reality in which palm oil plantations are somehow magically creating habitat for the species gravely endangered by their presence. Including unicorns.

Alan Oxley Doesn't Believe in Science

In a disturbing ad that almost made me barf, MPOC claims that palm oil “helps our planet to breathe, and gives home to hundreds of species of flora and fauna.” Clearly, the Malaysia Palm Oil Council does not use an inkling of science. According to a recent analysis of leading scientists, there are 85% less species in oil palm plantations than primary forest (the only exception: rats). Another recent study shows that the critically endangered orangutans of North Sumatra cannot survive in oil palm plantations at all. So what type of “science,” you may be wondering, does Alan Oxley use? I think the answer is: none.

A few weeks ago, we found out that not only scientists are speaking out against the dangers of letting one very privileged, habitually lying dude frame public opinion on palm oil — an issue that only impacts him because he wants to spread the scientific truth gets paid to lie and greenwash palm oil’s horrendous impact on the planet. This time, the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned a TV advertisements created by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (with help from its biggest cheerleader, Alan Oxley) for its misleading claims.

This advertisement was even attacked by a senior executive of a palm oil company who said, “some of the statements are so blatantly untrue that it undermines our credibility… environmental groups are going to focus on the obvious fallacies and use them against us.”

Enough said.

So, let’s get set the facts straight: Alan Oxley, chairman of the World Growth Institute, has longstanding connections with some of the largest, dirtiest palm oil companies in the world — including Sinar Mas. He has been accused by world renowned scientists of propagating “significant distortions, misrepresentations, or misinterpretations of fact… designed to defend the credibility of corporations… directly or indirectly supporting them financially.” Even palm oil company executives think he is too over the top to be taken seriously. And we should trust his absurd notion that palm oil will save us all from climate change? Um, how about no.

It seems like the work of forest communities and human rights and environmental organizations to educate the public about the devastating impacts of the palm oil industry on tropical rainforests, forest peoples, endangered species, and the climate is working. If it wasn’t, the multi-billion dollar palm oil industry wouldn’t need to hire people like Alan Oxley and task them with using an old and tired spin show to distort the truth through advertisements like the ones just banned in the UK. Win!

RSPO Certified: "Sustainable" Palm Oil?

What is Sustainable Palm Oil? Part one of a three-part series.

Palm oil has become an increasingly hot topic over the last year. This thick, long-lasting oil is found in almost half of all consumer goods sold in grocery stores and it is also a main driver of rainforest destruction in Indonesia and Malaysia.

As controversy over the oil and its role in deforestation increases, so do calls for the oil to be made more sustainably. The real question, however, is: Can palm oil ever be made sustainably? This series is dedicated to exploring just that question.

Both businesses and consumers who are concerned about palm oil often look to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) as the answer to the problem with palm oil. The RSPO is a voluntary initiative that aims to create a certification standard for “sustainable” oil palm. Nine percent of the world’s palm oil production is now certified according to the RSPO’s latest figures. Those who have some or all of their plantations certified under the RSPO include IOI, Kuala Lumpur Kepong (KLK) and Cargill.

But is RSPO-certified palm oil truly sustainable? The trick with most certification standards is that it they can either help businesses to improve their practices in a systematic way or they can systematically greenwash business-as-usual practices. The RSPO is a little of both.

As our allies at Greenpeace put it: “The aim of the [RSPO] is to create clear standards for producing sustainable palm oil but at present these standards are far too weak to ensure that forests and peatlands are not destroyed to meet growing demand for palm oil.”

As I’ve written in previous blog posts, sourcing RSPO-certified palm oil is a major step forward from sourcing from suppliers who are just RSPO members. But even with certification, there are major concerns. A few of the weaknesses of RSPO-certified palm oil include:

1. Lack of Environmental Safeguards: Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions standards are not included in RSPO’s certification process. This means that draining and clearing peatlands — the largest single source of our planet’s stored carbon and one of the most powerful defense mechanisms against climate change — is permissible.
2. Lack of Social Safeguards: Although the social safeguards in RSPO’s certification criteria look good on paper, they are seldom followed. This was evidenced recently by one of the RSPO’s founding members, IOI Group, which is currently under major global scrutiny for breaching RSPO Code of Conduct with serious human rights abuses.
3. Lack of Transparency and Enforcement: In the case of IOI, the RSPO announced in April 2011 that IOI would face sanctions if the company didn’t resolve its social conflict by May 2, 2011. It is now more than a month past that deadline and the RSPO has not done anything to reprimand IOI. Meanwhile the social conflict has escalated.

If companies like Cargill are going to rely on the RSPO then they need to actively work to improve it — and that means more than simply continuing “to work with the Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI) and the Indonesian government to advocate for sustainable palm oil development,” as stated in its 2010 and 2011 Palm Oil Commitments. If you want to know more about these industry groups whose mandate is to expand palm oil at any cost, stay tuned for the next part of our three-part series.

Click image to visit ChevronThinksWereStupid.org and view more spoof ads as well as make your own

Have you seen the way Big Oil has tried to rebrand itself since the BP oil disaster started six months ago? Each of the major oil companies wants us to believe it is the good oil company, the exception to the rule — not at all like BP. A few months ago, Shell launched its “Let’s Go” campaign, where it touts itself as providing cleaner energy for the next generation. And last week Chevron pulled out all the stops with its multi-million dollar “We Agree” ad campaign.

Chevron’s ads seek to address the current critiques of oil companies with affirming statements like “Oil companies should support the communities they’re part of” and “Oil companies should put their profits to good use.” All the ads feature “real people” saying what they think about oil companies while Chevron employees earnestly state, “We agree.”

Excuse my language, but what a bunch of hogwash. Chevron’s new ad campaign is an appalling display of hubris and greenwashing. It’s also ripe for the hoaxing. And that is exactly what’s happening. Chevron’s “We Agree” ad campaign is so rife with bitter but mock-worthy irony, in fact, that the comedic geniuses at Funny Or Die spoofed it today:

Update: The “We Agree” spoofing went viral, thanks in part to a website we launched along with The Yes Men and Amazon Watch: ChevronThinksWereStupid.org. Click that link to get in on the Chevron spoofing action and view many more amazing spoof ads!

Chevron’s advertising scheme to win over its critics backfired when it was launched. But the campaign actually started going south from the moment of production.

The oil company initially attempted to hire green bloggers, political street artists and activists for its ad campaign — presumably thinking these folks would somehow forget that the company pulls in around $167 billion a year in revenues by drilling for, refining and selling one of the dirtiest fossil fuel sources around.

Apparently Chevron thought it could throw some money at environmentalists and get them to help clean up the company’s image. Instead, those environmentalists had another idea — they would tip-off some of their close friends and launch Chevron’s campaign for them.

The fun started last week when, as the New York Times put it, “pranksters” lampooned Chevron’s ad campaign. Or, to put it another way, the fun started when the advertising strategy for one of the biggest oil companies in the world was officially punk’d.

Hours before Chevron went live with its $90 million dollar “We Agree” ad campaign, Rainforest Action Network and Amazon Watch partnered with famous corporate pranksters The Yes Men and came out with our own version. We altered Chevron’s “We Agree” ads ever-so-slightly to highlight the company’s greenwashing efforts as well as its role in dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic oil pollution in the Ecuadorean Amazon. For the first few days of the company’s ad launch, our fake press release, ads and website dominated the news and drowned out Chevron’s corporate greenwashing.

Mock chevron ads also started showing up in the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, DC. And a contest was launched to see who could create the best-spoofed Chevron ad. My personal favorite has a sneering picture of Jack Nicholson with the tagline, “We lie because you can’t handle the truth.”

Our intention is not to trick reporters or play a practical joke on Chevron. Our intention is to highlight the egregious distance between Chevron’s rhetoric and reality. A company that wreaks havoc in communities across the globe has a lot of nerve coming out with ads featuring actors saying, “Oil companies should support the communities they’re part of.” It is hubris incarnate.

The question is, did Chevron think these ads would actually be compelling to critics? Do they really think we’re that stupid?

I think the answer may have been, yes. Instead of trying to clean up its mess, the company thought it could run a $90 million dollar ad campaign cleaning up its image.

Message to Chevron: We’re not that stupid.

This post originally appeared on Huffington Post.

A few weeks ago, the British government granted Chevron the first deepwater drilling permit it has approved since the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico began back in April.

At virtually the same time — and with little to no fanfare — Chevron finished drilling the first deepwater oil well to be completed in North America since the tragedy in the Gulf started. Some 260 miles northeast of Newfoundland, Chevron’s well is the deepest ever drilled off of Canada’s coasts.

Now we’ve got news that Chevron will spend $7.5 billion on one of the largest deepwater drilling projects in US history. The Houston Chronicle describes it as “a massive floating city about 280 miles southwest of New Orleans.”

Chevron is leading the charge to recklessly exploit the world’s dwindling oil supplies in the post-Gulf oil spill world, but the company prefers to keep that fact quiet. Why? It’s one of those pesky facts that would spoil Chevron’s efforts to recast itself as a responsible, environmentally conscious oil company (despite the obvious fact that “environmentally conscious oil company” is an oxymoron that would require mass-cognitive dissonance to take hold in the public consciousness).

As part of its easy-to-spoof PR efforts, Chevron likes to highlight its projects that don’t actually involve enormous risks to sensitive ecosystems or contribute to global warming. One of those is the Chevron Lucerne Valley Solar Project, which will produce up to 45 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 13,500 – 33,750 homes. There’s definitely a certain poetic justice in Chevron’s dirty oil money being used to help bring more clean, green solar energy into the mix. But don’t go changing your opinion of the company just yet.

Chevron has no intention of changing its core business from dirty fossil fuels to clean renewable energy. That’s just window dressing, meant to mask the supremely dirty business going on inside the shop. In fact, between January 2009 and June 2010, Chevron spent over $28 million on lobbying and PAC contributions to federal candidates in order to protect its oil business, according to the Center for American Progress. The positive benefits of the Chevron Lucerne Valley Solar Project will easily be negated by Chevron continuing its dirty business as usual.

This isn’t the first time Chevron used a solar project as a means of greenwashing its otherwise dirty oil business. We posted about Chevron’s Project Brightfield earlier this year, a solar project the company will use to power its Kern River Heavy Oil Extraction Facility, once again defeating the purpose of green energy by charging full steam ahead with its dirty oil business. See a pattern here?

While all new solar capacity added to the national mix is undoubtedly a good thing, Chevron is plowing millions of dollars into efforts to protect its fossil fuels business, and the company’s own CEO has admitted that he hopes it will take generations to phase fossil fuels out altogether. Meanwhile, the company is aggressively pursuing unprecedented deepwater drilling operations that imperil precious ecosystems and wildlife.

Until Chevron stops working to keep us hooked on the dirty stuff for as long as possible in its blind quest for profits, it cannot credibly claim to be responsible or environmentally conscious. In other words, the company will continue to be ripe for the punking. Download our spoof Chevron ads and get to punking today by putting them up in your town!

Chevron rolled out a fancy new ad campaign yesterday, and we were ready for them. We had only a fraction of Chevron’s budget — the company won’t say how much it spent this time around, but typically spends as much as $90 million on an ad campaign like this — but we had the element of surprise, and we were determined to press our advantage. Go here for the full scoop.

PNC prides itself on being the “greenest bank in the business” and last week further contributed to that delusion by opening a new “green” certified building as their regional HQ in Washington D.C.

Containing a “15,000 square-foot Eco-Skygarden covering half of the 12-story building’s roof” and “a three-story ‘climate wall’ of constantly falling water, which controls temperature and humidity in the lobby” the building is PNC’s latest big greenwash.

Why is this an exercise in greenwashing? Because, PNC is the largest funder of mountaintop removal in the U.S. They gave over $130 million to six of the eight largest mountaintop removal coal companies.

EQAT Member George Lakey, arrested at PNC in Washington D.C.

Early last week, Rainforest Action Network, Rev. Billy, the Earth Quaker Action Team and many others did a sit-in at PNC’s flagship branch in Washington D.C. during Appalachia Rising.

Look for more as we amp up our campaign against them and be sure to tell the CEO James Rohr what you think about his bank’s policies.

What Cargill's Illegal Palm Operations Look Like in West Kalimantan. Photo: David Gilbert/RAN

Cargill just released their 2010 Corporate Responsibility Report, which provides an overview of Cargill’s amazing lackluster efforts to address supply chain issues including sourcing palm oil associated with rainforest destruction and social conflict. Titled “Growing Together,” the report is a seriously misleading account of the environmental and human rights achievements of the world’s largest privately owned corporation.

What’s most perplexing is that in this new report, Cargill highlights their PT Hindoli palm plantation in South Sumatra as “such a strong model for sustainability that the Indonesian government uses it as a prime example of sustainable palm oil production,” while just days before an article in the Jakarta Post came out reporting strong evidence that PT Hindoli (a unit of the Cargill Group) had conducted land clearing in a large swathe of forest outside the company’s conession area- a serious violation which carries hefty penalties.

The article noted that Hindoli’s offence has been confirmed by an audit by the Indonesian Supreme Audit Agency (BPK); at the end of this Jakarta Post piece Cargill claims they’re working with the Foresty Ministry to pay their fines and settle the matter.

In this new CSR report Cargill claims it is is “committed to advancing the sustainability of oil palm production around the world” yet even after three years of RAN campaigning and calling on Cargill to do so they have yet to release and adopt a responsible palm oil sourcing policy after years of RAN campaigning for them to do so.

Can Cargill Meet the Growing Demands for Responsible Palm in the U.S.?

Cargill claims to have their “own policies for responsible palm production,” but what they’re calling “policies” are actually just a couple of minimal criteria such as not planting on high conservation value forests (HCVF), not developing new plantations on deep peat land or land that would threaten biodiversity, and enforcing a strict no-burn policy for land preparation. Interestingly, we found Cargill to be violating even these most basic commitments as documented in RAN’s investigative report released this spring.

Equally as disappointing, although Cargill is the largest importer of palm oil into the U.S. and supplies palm oil to most major food company in America, it still has unacceptably weak goals for sourcing sustainable palm oil even as it controls 20-25% of the world palm oil trade. Cargill has, for example, the relatively meaningless goal of buying 60 percent of its total crude palm oil from RSPO members by the end of 2010.  However, many RSPO Members are currently in gross violation of RSPO standards. PT SMART, a subsidiary of Sinar Mas Group, was just recently censured by the RSPO for its destructive palm oil practices.  But Cargill refuses to drop Sinar Mas as a source of palm oil in its supply chains.  This despite major global customers like General Mills, Unilever and others insisting that they do not want to purchase any palm oil at all that comes from Sinar Mas.

General Mills has recently announced its goal of sourcing 100% certified responsible palm oil by 2015 with a purchasing preference for RSPO certified palm. They join a growing number of major food companies around the world demanding 100% segregated RSPO-certified palm oil from their suppliers.

Cargill needs to move quickly beyond the greenwash if it is going to be able to meet the growing demand for responsible palm oil in time.

This week, as campers emerged from their tent village to lay non-violent siege to RBS facilities throughout Edinburgh, the bank released “new figures” to re-assert its green credentials. Yesterday, an RBS Spokesperson told the Guardian:

“Since January 2006, we have lent more money directly to wind power projects than to any other type of energy project and have been the leading UK financier of this sector over the last 10 years… We are one of the biggest lenders in the UK to renewable projects. Between 2004 and 2008 RBS lent more to renewable power projects than any other commercial bank globally.” [emphasis added]

The bank’s carefully crafted statement is technically accurate but intentionally misleading.  First RBS relies on outdated pre-recession figures. Second, RBS’s new figures isolate “project finance,” a relatively small segment of its overall business.*

A careful look at financial transactions compiled by Bloomberg shows the inconvenient truth that RBS is trying to hide: Since UK taxpayers took over the bank in 2008, the bank’s alternative energy lending has declined by nearly 86% ($640 million since the bailout vs. $4.5 billion in the same period prior). The graph below shows the trend in alternative vs. conventional energy lending (project finance and general lending) underwritten by RBS since 2007.

RBS Energy Lending

Globally, RBS’ rank in terms of lending to alternative energy projects fell from 1^st place in 2004-2008 as cited in yesterday’s “new figures” to 39^th in the period since.

The point here is not to split hairs over language and data points. The point is that RBS needs to walk the talk. The bank says that “Just as society as a whole has to make a transition to renewable energy sources so will banks like RBS,” so let’s either see more of that (our preference) or hear less of it.

*Project Finance refers to a specific type of loan secured by large industrial projects (like wind farms and pipelines). By contrast, general “corporate lending” is essentially a cash transaction secured by a borrower’s assets and generally not tied to a specific project.   Project Finance comprises only a fraction of RBS’ overall lending. General corporate lending is the bank’s bread and butter.

The Jakarta Globe reported that a teenage boy was mauled by Sumatran tiger in the Senepis area of Indonesia, an area where Asia Pulp and Paper ( a subsidiary of Sinar Mas Group) along with other Sinar Mas-associated companies have expanded their natural forest clearance operations.

Later that day, Asia Pulp and Paper ran an ad in the New York Times stating that it took its responsibility as stewards of the environment seriously. The ad proclaims, “We support programs that preserve 261,930 acres in the Senepis Tiger Sanctuary…”

Dubbed under the tagline “APP Cares,” the ad’s heading reads,  “To see our commitment to biodiversity, just follow our tracks.” Given the timing, the allusion to tiger tracks now just seems a perverse irony.

NY Times Ad: Another Greenwash Attempt by APP

Looking at the New York Times ad, I wonder what does APP’s “caring” really mean? If a boy was eaten by a tiger that lost its habitat in the area that APP operates but publicly claims to be preserving, their care or “support” seems, at the very least, a little suspect.

The Jakarta Globe explains that Sumatran tigers’ habitat is threatened by rampant deforestation, which causes many tigers to roam into villages or onto plantations in search of food, setting off conflicts with humans.

What the Jakarta Globe doesn’t say is that much of this deforestation is for pulp and paper and palm oil – two industries dominated by Sinar Mas and Asia Pulp and Paper.

While I would truly love to believe that APP does care about tigers, people and the planet, they are going to have to do more than run greenwashing ads in the New York Times to convince me.

**For more information: See the Eyes on the Forest report documenting APP’s  logging activities that directly threatened tiger habitat in the Senepis area.

But Downing Street won’t enforce basic environmental standards at RBS so Climate Camp is taking direct action. The camp is calling for RBS to end financing of dirty fossil fuel projects like Canada’s tar sands.

RBS defended itself in the press by touting its backing of alternative energy projects. The bank told the Guardian that “in 2006 the bank was the world’s largest single financier of wind and green energy.” It told the BBC that “In recent years RBS has been one of the most active banks in the world in providing funding for renewable energy projects.”

Those claims are royal BS.

According to financial market data compiled by Bloomberg, RBS ranked third as financier for alternative energy companies in 2006. In the period since the taxpayer bailout, RBS ranks a distant 19th!

This chart illustrates the point. Of the more than $15 billion RBS raised for the energy sector since the bailout, just $83 million went to alternative energy–less than one percent.

RAN Activists Take Over Cargill Headquarters: Photo by David Gilbert/RAN

After months of waiting for the results of the Sinar Mas “audit,” the controversial findings are finally public and it’s now up to Cargill executives to decide how they will proceed, i. e. whether or not to sever ties with the company known for its rainforest destruction and unsustainable palm oil practices.

Read our open letter to Cargill below:

August 10, 2010

Mark Murphy
Assistant Vice President, Cargill Corporate Affairs

Mark,

As you know, Sinar Mas released the controversial findings of their PT Smart audit today, with hopes of using it to clear their name of rainforest destruction and social conflict associated with their palm oil plantation operations.  Rainforest Action Network stands with Greenpeace, Unilever, and many others in rejecting this audit as being neither comprehensive nor representative of PT SMART’s palm oil operations.  We hope that you’ll view this attempted greenwash by Sinar Mas as another sign that the company is not moving forward in good faith towards more sustainable palm oil production.

Problems with the Sinar Mas “audit” that merit immediate action:

• Although the official complaint against Sinar Mas  filed at the RSPO put into question the company’s violations of RSPO principles and criteria, this audit is an initiative of PT SMART and is too limited in scope to provide an accurate assessment of the Sinar Mas Group
• Further, this “audit” only looks at three PT SMART concessions covering 40% of its plantations area; it does not assess the rest of PT SMART’s concessions including those in Papua or the larger holdings of Golden Agri Resources (GAR), and is therefore not comprehensive enough to provide an adequate   assessment of its palm oil plantation practices
• The audit shows that PT Smart has destroyed carbon rich peatlands and cleared rainforests for conversion to palm oil plantations
• The audit  is not based on RSPO Principles and Criteria nor Sinar Mas’ adherence to them

In sum, the “Independent Verification Report” that PT Smart paid for and just released is being used by Sinar Mas as a smokescreen to distract attention from what we know to be the many real negative impacts on the ground from their operations on the Islands of Sumatra, Borneo and upcoming threats in New Guinea.  This strongly reinforces the widely held view that U.S. based companies like Cargill cannot rely on Sinar Mas’ misleading claims of sustainability and should reject them.

We are aware that Cargill is “reviewing the results and discussing them with PT SMART in the next few days to decide how [you] wish to proceed.” We urge you to make a formal response to our concerns and to take proactive action now and cancel all direct and indirect contracts with Sinar Mas.

Sincerely,

Bill Barclay

Corporate Communications & Interim Program Director
Rainforest Action Network

Threatened Peat Swamp Forest. Photo: Leonard Freitas.

So what does this mean for U.S. companies that have palm oil in their supply chain? Well, for starters, it serves as strong proof that palm oil is an increasingly controversial and risky commodity due to its negative impacts on tropical rainforests, the climate, critical habitat for endangered species, as well as diverse communities of people that rely on healthy forests for their livelihoods.

Market leader companies like Unilever, Nestle and Kraft have already distanced themselves from Sinar Mas to disassociate their brand from rainforest destruction, and all but Kraft have adopted strong policies to ensure they are not a part of the problem but rather part of the solution. Will General Mills and Cargill follow suit? It’s time that all U.S. companies get out of this problem and embark upon the pathway to change.

Consumers have a right to have information about the various products and services available to them and a right to determine for themselves which they want.

That is a statement everyone can agree with. But what Basiron did not do is attempt to support his advert’s misinformation and false science. The ASA ruled that MPOC released an ad that was not factual, and that is what Basiron should be refuting. But clearly he can not. This is not the first time that MPOC and Basiron has said some surprising things. Just a few months ago, Basiron claimed that orangutans actually benefit from oil palm plantations, a claim that has been refuted by many  published papers showing that palm oil is a key driver of the orangutans’ steady decline towards extinction. For years now, the MPOC has been throwing around the term ‘sustainable’ for their palm oil producers, who have been busily destroying forests and uprooting cultures. It seems that MPOC wants us to believe that just because the palm trees they plant are green, so are their business practices.

Barison has his own blog, and it is informing to read his perspective on ‘anti-developing country environmentalists’, as he refers to them. When it comes to sustainability, he argues because the MPOC “…is among the first to consciously apply R&D, licensing and registration activities…” to make the oil palm a viable industry, and  “The dictionary states  that viability and sustainability roughly have similar meanings” then the oil palm industry must be sustainable. If it was only that easy.