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,…
Part four in a five-part series on the attitudes of palm oil financiers towards company sustainability. Read the first, second, third and fifth installments. he previous article in this series discussed the role of governments and regulators…
Part three in a five-part series on the attitudes of palm oil financiers towards company sustainability. Read the first, second, fourth and fifth installments. he question of materiality — whether an issue affects a company’s finances…
Part two in a five-part series on the attitudes of palm oil financiers towards company sustainability. Read the first, third, fourth and fifth installments. vidence suggests that environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk assessment…
Part one in a five-part series on the attitudes of oil palm financiers towards company sustainability. Read the second, third, fourth and fifth installments. ithin the sustainability sector, finance is increasingly being seen as…
A Malaysian palm oil company has suspended forest clearing on a small portion of its holdings to comply with Wilmar's zero deforestation policy, reports The Edge Financial Daily. Jaya Tiasa…
There have been a lot of high-profile pledges to halt deforestation from both the public and private sector lately, but new research shows just how far we still are from…
Green groups are pressuring PepsiCo to stop letting joint venture partners such as Indonesia’s biggest food company use its brand for products made with so-called conflict palm oil. The Rainforest…
The international effort to contain wildfires in Indonesia continued on Thursday as a senior government minister indicated the country would look to relax no-deforestation commitments taken up by palm oil…
For the past three years, Greenpeace Brazil has been collecting signatures in support of a bill that would establish zero deforestation as the law of the land. Last Wednesday, accompanied…
With fire-driven haze casting a pall over Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, the palm oil industry is facing intense pressure to clean up its act. While most big companies have adopted…
ommercial agriculture causes more than two-thirds of deforestation worldwide, which has led to much scrutiny and numerous calls for change. Both private industry and governments have made many promises to…
As Southeast Asia’s annual haze problem once again makes headlines, this time even leading to arrests of company officials allegedly connected to the illegal agricultural fires that create the smog,…
