The beef purchasing policies of global name-brand companies are failing to protect South America’s tropical forests from destruction, according to a new report. A scorecard released today by the Union…
Indonesia’s final frontier of forestland is being decimated by a Korean conglomerate, which is violating the law by systematically burning land in its pursuit of lucrative palm oil, a new…
This is the second in a series of commentaries about the disbandment of the Indonesia Palm Oil Pledge (IPOP). Read the first one here. Regardless of how conservationists and businesses…
Malaysia’s IOI Group has regained the right to sell “certified sustainable” palm oil under the brand of the RSPO, the world’s largest association for ethical production of the commodity. The…
This is the first in a series of commentaries about the disbandment of the Indonesia Palm Oil Pledge (IPOP). Read the second one here. The Indonesian Palm Oil Pledge or IPOP was signed…
Cargill is the latest palm oil user to suspend ties with IOI Group, the Malaysian company that has had its certification suspended from the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)…
The global agribusiness Bunge is the latest palm oil user to sanction IOI Group, the Malaysian producer that lost its Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification in March over…
A landmark environmental pledge by the world’s largest palm oil producing companies folded on Friday following a threat by Indonesia’s anti-monopoly agency to investigate the group for cartel-like practices. The…
Leading palm oil user Cargill has issued an ultimatum to its supplier IOI Group after the Malaysian producer lost its Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification over environmental destruction…
While Europe has shown early leadership in pushing the palm oil sector toward less damaging practices, European politicians and business leaders need to do more to improve the sustainability of…
The governments of Norway and the United States on Wednesday pledged to strengthen efforts to protect and restore tropical forests, including cracking down on the illegal timber trade, supporting technologies…
Michelin Group, one of the world's three largest tire companies, has just adopted a zero deforestation policy for its rubber sourcing. The move is significant because rubber is a major…
Halting deforestation was a major topic of discussion at the Paris climate talks last December, so much so that the UN’s program for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation…
It's easy to be pessimistic about the state of the world's forests. Rates of forest loss remain persistently high, especially in the tropics and boreal regions. Drought, fragmentation, degradation via…
One of Indonesia’s largest conglomerates, the Salim Group, has likely acquired four palm oil concessions in West Papua using a complex network of shared directorships and offshore companies, new research…
Norway is a leader in funding forest conservation around the world (see here, here, and here, for example), and has also taken a stand for the human rights of forest…
The Brazilian soy industry has indefinitely extended a landmark moratorium on rainforest clearing for soybean production. The agreement, first signed in 2006 after a Greenpeace campaign, had previously been renewed…
Asia Pulp & Paper’s (APP) plans to operate a giant mill in South Sumatra later this year have raised some uncomfortable questions about the veracity of the conglomerate’s lauded no-deforestation…
More companies are cutting back supplies from Malaysian palm oil giant IOI Group after its suspension from the world's largest association for ethical palm oil production, the RSPO. Hershey's, Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, Procter…
If demand for palm oil keeps growing the way it has been in Indonesia's eastern Kalimantan region, there might not be enough degraded land available in 2020 to prevent further deforestation…
In the wake of IOI Group's suspension from the the world's largest association for ethical palm oil production, its customers Unilever, Kellogg and Mars have announced they will stop doing business…
In January, Rainforest Alliance, one of the world's most influential environmental groups for its work in developing eco-certification as a mechanism for raising social and environmental standards for commodity production,…
Most consumer goods giants with commitments to eliminate deforestation from their palm oil supply chains are “moving far too slowly,” according to a new Greenpeace scorecard that rates their progress.…
The paper product industry — and public at large — has a new tool to determine exactly who is connected to the companies responsible for deforesting Indonesia. An absence of…
The Indonesian government’s sustainable palm oil certification program announced the findings of a joint study with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil on Wednesday that details how the two systems…
Indonesia’s second-largest palm oil producer has officially signed on to a pledge whose signatories promise to purge their supply chains of deforestation, peatlands conversion and rights abuses. The company, Astra…
The Malaysian-owned palm oil company Genting Plantations has again been accused of clearing ecologically important secondary forest in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan province according to a recent report by Greenomics that…
Part five in a five-part series on the attitudes of palm oil financiers towards company sustainability. Read the first, second, third and fourth installments. anks and investors are increasingly looking for ways to hold companies accountable for their…
Peat fires burned 293,065 hectares of land within concessions managed by Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) suppliers during last year's haze crisis, an area amounting to 37 percent of its…
by 4 February 2016
Last year some two million hectares of land in Indonesia went up in flames across Sumatra, Borneo, and the Western half of New Guinea. The conflagrations caused choking air pollution,…
