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
Uruguayan and Finnish organisations issue statement against UPM’s plans for new pulp mill in Uruguay
Uruguayan and Finnish social and environmental organisations released a joint statement last week stating their opposition to the plans of the Finnish pulp and paper company UPM to build a new pulp mill in Uruguay (UPM also has an existing mill in Fray Bentos). This...
More than 50 NGOs call for justice for Rosane Santiago Silveira
The Environmental Paper Network and its members are extremely concerned by the torture and murder of Rosane Santiago Silveira, a mother and environmental and human rights activist who was killed in Brazil on January 29, 2019, and send our deepest condolences to her...
The hidden land conflicts of Suzano – the world’s largest pulp producer
In the northeast of Brazil, where the Amazon transitions to the Catinga biome through a small strip of Cerrado, lies almost 60% of the land that Brazilian paper producer Suzano uses to source timber. This is one of Brazil’s poorest and least developed...
Sustainability commitments should be taken into account in Fibria deal
A battle is ongoing in the world of pulp production as two giants, Suzano and APP/Paper Excellence, fight over Fibria, the world’s largest producer of eucalyptus pulp. In these battles, price tends to be the determining factor, but we urge Fibria’s shareholders, as...
Farmers protest against potential new APP supplier in Sumatra
An estimated 5000 local residents from 39 villages located in the Bangka Belitung islands, South Sumatra, protested today in front of the local government office against a concession for the acacia plantation awarded to a company called PT. Build Rimba Sejahtera (PT...
Investigation links APP with fires and controversial suppliers
An Associated Press investigation has found that Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) and its parent company Sinarmas, now five years into ambitious forest conservation promises, "has extensive behind-the-scenes ties and significant influence over wood suppliers linked to fires...
Indonesian NGOs Write to Banks: Stop Financing APRIL
Thirty Indonesian NGOs have sent a letter to twenty banks in China and Europe calling on them to divest from APRIL and its related companies. In 2015, after a long history of rainforest distraction and community rights abuses, APRIL announced a new commitment. Since...
A Land Grab for Pulp – a report on Portucel Mozambique
Our latest discussion document explores the plan by The Navigator Company to develop a new pulp mill in Mozambique. The Portuguese company, operating as Portucel Mozambique and with funding from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, is acquiring huge...
In the Red: Bank policies fail to ensure they will avoid irresponsible investment in the paper industry
A new assessment by the EPN of bank policies has been completed and published here: http://environmentalpaper.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/In-the-Red.pdf The assessment studied how ready the financial sector is to manage the environmental and social risks of...
Pulp & paper industry: social impacts and little development
While RAN is voicing local communities affected by pulp & paper industry in Indonesia, the Environment and Forest Minister says that this industry gives a very marginal contribution to Indonesia’s GDP: less than 1%. Ran published last week an online gallery of...
Local communities protests in South Sumatra: “Restoration, not amnesty for corporate crime”
While governments and companies meet in Pelambang, South Sumatra, for the Bonn Challenge Meeting, local communities representatives coming from areas affected by plantations, organised together with NGOs a parallel meeting in the city. Over 30 members of communities...
NGOs send a letter to Asia Pulp & Paper, urging reform of APP structures and practices
A group of nearly 60 Indonesian and international NGOs sent a letter to APP director, Linda Wijaya, to express their concern regarding a new possible supplier, PT. Bangun Rimba Sejahtera (PT BRS). According to a recent NGO report, the company has a concession...
