Procter & Gamble, the brand behind well-known products like Tide, Head & Shoulders, Olay and Crest, sources the ingredients for these products from suppliers that are complicit in destroying rainforests and the livelihoods of Indigenous communities by expanding palm oil plantations. The personal care giant knows the problem and how to solve it
but it’s refusing to take action.
One of P&G’s biggest palm oil suppliers is Indonesia’s agribusiness giant Royal Golden Eagle Group (RGE), which controls millions of acres of land through a network of companies that produce both pulp and palm oil. It’s also one of the worst human rights offenders, as its owner, wealthy corporate tycoon Sukanto Tanoto, is associated with a pulp and paper company that’s responsible for stealing Indigenous lands in North Sumatra.
Sukanto Tanoto
Pulp & Paper
Palm Oil
Responsible for land theft, deforestation, fires and human rights abuses
P&G Got an F
on RAN’s Keep Forests Standing Scorecard - F for failing to implement its commitment to protect rainforests and human rights by cutting ties with bad actors in all of its supply chains.
If P&G wants to truly touch lives and improve life, it must:
- Hold bad actors to account, starting with suspending business with RGE and any affiliated company
- Adopt and implement No Deforestation, No Peatland and No Exploitation (NDPE) Policies across its supply chains
- Make its supply chains transparent by releasing its Forest Footprints
- Prevent Violence and Uphold Human Rights
- Prove Compliance by Business Partners
Doing business with RGE makes P&G complicit in the land grabs that are happening in North Sumatra. We can't accept P&G's lack of accountability when people's livelihoods and the future of the planet are at stake.
The rainforests of Sumatra, Indonesia are some of the last remaining in the world, and have a critical role to play against global climate change and the crisis of global biodiversity loss. Many of these last standing rainforests are on the lands of Indigenous communities.
Across Indonesia, frontline communities are “forest defenders”, standing in the way of the further destruction of rainforests for Conflict Palm Oil and pulp plantations.
The Pargamanan-Bintang Maria community in the province of North Sumatra, Indonesia, is but one example of a community impacted by RGE's operations.
They continue to fight for their lands that are occupied by RGE's associated pulp company PT. Toba Pulp Lestari (TPL).
In the past, P&G has banned sourcing wood pulp from one of RGE's pulp and paper companies for a similar reason. This means it is possible. It's only a matter of willpower - and public pressure. P&G could cut ties with RGE tomorrow which is why we are demanding that it suspend all sourcing from RGE and all its subsidiaries immediately.
Tell P&G to Suspend RGE!
RAN is committed to the Jemez Principles and we follow Indigenous leadership in the land rights movement. To combat climate change and stop deforestation, land must be returned to Indigenous communities.