Ensure Social Responsibility
- Recognise, respect and protect human rights, and comply with and proactively develop fundamental employment and social standards and relevant international agreements for the protection of human rights.
- Ensure free, prior and informed consent of local peoples and communities in the areas from which raw materials originate and where production takes place.
- Recognise, respect and protect indigenous peoples’ and local communities’ legal and customary rights to control their traditional lands and protect their cultural identity.
- Recognise, respect and protect local communities’ rights to a healthy environment, and rights to participation as a primary stakeholder in land-use planning.
- Recognise, respect and protect workers’, including subcontractors’ workers’, rights to beneficial employment and a safe working environment.
- Promote community-ownership, worker-ownership and the development of paper manufacturing facilities that are scaled appropriately for local communities, and a diversity of small- and medium-sized enterprises in the paper sector.
- Respect and support local economies on the basis of a long-term social and environmental
Relevant Resources
News and Resources related to Social Responsibility
Pulp and Bioenergy Company’s Claim of Green Leadership Fails Fact Check
Berlin, 24 March 2020 - A discussion document released by the Environmental Paper Network (EPN) unveils the social and environmental risks associated with the Finnish company UPM-Kymmene and its operations in Uruguay, and highlights the importance of strong social and...
Organizations question UPM’s greenwashing campaign
Social organizations from Uruguay, Finland and other countries, have published a letter which questions UPM's greenwashing campaign. The company presents itself as a leading global corporation in the fight against climate change, but the letter provides the results of...
Conflicts Plantations: Two new investigative research reports from Indonesia
New research conducted by a coalition of Indonesian organisations and the Environmental Paper Network has found that the two major Indonesian paper companies, Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) are involved in hundreds...
Two ways to get companies to waste less paper over the holidays
Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash Heading into the year-end holidays our list of to-do’s may include some gift-giving, some special cooking, and a lot of trying to save the world with our individual choices to cut consumption and avoid throwaway products and packaging....
Newly Published Investigative Research Reveals Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) Involved in Hundreds of Conflicts with Local Communities in Indonesia
New research conducted by a coalition of Indonesian organisations and the Environmental Paper Network has found that the second-largest Indonesian paper company Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) is involved in hundreds of conflicts with communities...
Thousands march again in Montevideo against UPM pulp mill
Last Friday, thousands gathered in Montevideo to participate in another march opposing UPM 2, the Paso de los Toros pulp mill plan in Uruguay. The march was organized by the National Coordination against UPM, which gathers over 60 organizations. "The contract that has...
Reclaiming A’se’k: Boat Harbour and the Next Generation
On the shoreline of the Northumberland Strait in Nova Scotia, in the 1960's, an important area for culture and sustenance known as A'se'k to the Mi’kmaq, was stolen to construct an effluent treatment facility for a pulp mill. They were told it would be safe. It was a...
Mapuche communities face water stress caused by the forestry industry in Chile
(Photo: Planta de Celulosa Arauco en Mariquina | INDH) A field observation mission by the Chilean National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) revealed that Mapuche communities in the Mariquina commune, in the Los Ríos Region, face water shortages and pollution caused by...
All Uruguayan political parties at debate question contract between government and UPM
During a roundtable debate with environmental experts from political parties that are participating in the upcoming national elections in Uruguay, all participants expressed their concerns regarding the contract signed between the Government and UPM, the multinational...
Uruguayan citizens opposing UPM’s new pulp mill appeal to the Finnish government
In Uruguay, the citizen opposition to a new pulp mill planned by the Finnish paper giant UPM continues to grow. Last Friday, a citizen movement calling itself as the "national coordination of social organisations against UPM", representing more than 40 organisations...
UPM’s Paso de los Toros mill poses financial and reputational risks
In Uruguay, protests are rising against the installation of UPM’s planned new pulp mill project in Paso de los Toros. There has been strong social criticism on the conditions of the contract that the government signed with UPM, on the expected impacts of the pulp mill...
Chilean pulp mill’s major expansion could fuel conflicts
In Chile, Arauco, the country’s second largest pulp producer, has started building a new 1.56 million tonnes/year pulp line at its Horcones mill, in the Biobío region. This project, called MAPA, is problematic as it is likely to fuel land conflicts, especially with...
