RAN decries P&G move as step backwards for Intact Forests and Forest Communities
San Francisco – Rainforest Action Network has issued a response to Procter & Gamble’s quiet publication of a revised Forest Commodities Policy, saying the policy is a disappointing step backwards for the major global brand’s progress in addressing its role in the rapidly escalating climate and biodiversity crisis. Procter & Gamble is facing growing pressure from investors and a broad coalition of concerned local residents, national climate justice advocates, and Indigenous leaders from Indonesia over its failure to address its connection to documented violations of human rights and the destruction of climate-critical forests around the world.
P&G has been called out as a laggard amongst its peers in RAN’s Keep Forest Standing campaign due to major loopholes in its policies and its failure to eliminate its connection to the destruction of forests and human rights violations. RAN says this policy revision is a missed opportunity as P&G has not only not addressed the critical flaws in its previous policy, but has actually taken a step backwards by weakening its already inadequate standards.
P&G claims to be investing in forest restoration programs. RAN’s most recent investigation has shown that it is failing to deliver on its commitment to restore areas of peat forests that were illegally cleared and burnt by a supplier in a globally important region of Sumatra known as the ‘Orangutan Capital of the World.’
Daniel Carrillo, Forest Campaign Director at Rainforest Action Network, issued the following response:
“A close read of P&G’s new policy reveals the company has actually weakened its already inadequate standards so it no longer prohibits forest degradation caused by industrial logging in its wood pulp supply chain. This new loophole will have devastating consequences in the last remaining Intact Forest Landscapes and primary forests in Canada.
“Procter & Gamble has once again failed to back up its spin with substance. Its new Forest Commodities Policy is a step backwards even as the climate and biodiversity crises continue to escalate rapidly.
“From Canada’s Boreal forests to the rainforests of Indonesia, P&G is implicated through its supply chain in deforestation and human rights abuses around the world and continues to source from some of the largest corporations even when the company knows they are causing serious human suffering and environmental harm.
“It has also failed to close a major loophole that allows the company to continue doing business with large corporate groups known to be responsible for exploiting communities and destroying forests in their wider operations.”