Posted by jamie — 10 August 2010 at 3:48pm
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An important fact about the Sinar Mas group: it is destroying carbon-rich rainforests and peatlands in Indonesia, including endangered wildlife habitat.
If you take away one thing from this post, that's the most important.
Today, the notorious forest destroyer tried to clear its name as it released an audit it commissioned to examine Greenpeace investigations of its oil palm plantations. Ironically, the audit confirms that Sinar Mas has been clearing forests and peatland, but rather than acknowledging this Sinar Mas is trying to hide the audit through a greenwash exercise.
Posted by jamie — 10 August 2010 at 10:09am
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Laura from our international office updates on what's been going on since Nestlé's Facebook page went into meltdown.
"Social media: as you can see, we're learning as we go. Thanks for
the comments." On 19 March, that was the status message on Nestlé's
Facebook fan page - which had already been under siege for three days.
The message didn't stay up there for long but it was obviously in
recognition of the page administrator's poor handling of the comments
and criticisms that had been streaming in since the launch of our KitKat ad spoof.
Those of us following social media/marketing blogs
know what happened to Nestlé's online reputation - it quickly became
synonomous with words like: "disaster", "kitkatastrophe", "nightmare",
"meltdown" and so on. But what did all of those Facebook comments do for
Indonesia's rainforests?
Posted by jamie — 8 July 2010 at 9:21am
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Wahey, you've scored
another victory! After receiving nearly 10,000 emails (and seeing
some excellent
spoof adverts), HSBC has sold its shares in Sinar Mas,
one of the worst companies responsible for ripping up the Indonesian
rainforest for palm oil and pulp plantations. It's fantastic news (as The Guardian was quick to agree) that has
shone a light on the financial side of deforestation. And you made
this happen - thanks!
Posted by jamie — 6 July 2010 at 9:56am
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Like orang-utans, the future of Sumatran tigers is being jeopordised by the relentless destruction of their habitat by paper giant APP
Even though we've
had huge success in turning companies like Unilever, Nestlé and Kraft
off palm oil produced by Sinar Mas, that only represents one part of the jigsaw and Sinar Mas is still chewing
its way through Indonesia's rainforests.
Palm oil is one of two
plantation products which are driving deforestation in Indonesia, paper
being the other big hitter. Needless to say, Sinar Mas is up to its
neck in the paper business as well and we've compiled new evidence
in a report called Pulping the Planet which shows exactly how its pulp and paper operations are threatening
the forests just as much as its palm oil business is.
Controlled by the Indonesian Widjaja
family, the Sinar Mas group is one of
the largest conglomerates in Indonesia
engaged in clearing rainforests and
destroying peatlands. The group also
has significant interests in coal mining,
amongst other sectors.
Sinar Mas’ pulp and paper division, Asia
Pulp and Paper (APP), is Indonesia’s
largest pulp and paper producer.
HSBC's advertising creates a world where this monolithic financial institution truly empathises with the cultural, environmental and deeply symbolic relationships people have with trees and rainforests. It's a make-believe world, of course. The bank's actions speak far louder than the syrupy voiceovers and twee sentiments in their adverts, so just like BP's logo, they're ripe for a makeover. So why not make one of your own?
Posted by jamie — 19 May 2010 at 12:04pm
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Given we've turned our sights away
from Nestle towards HSBC,
a few more details might be in order about why we've gone from chocolatey giant
to banking colossus as the next stage in our campaign to stop Indonesia's
rainforests being replaced with palm oil and paper plantations. It's a lateral
step but then our intent has always been to tackle the palm oil industry at
every level, from production to consumption and all points in between.
Chocolate giant Nestle has agreed to stop using palm oil and other ingredients from suppliers that destroy the rainforest home of the last remaining orangutans in its popular snacks such as KitKat.
The move to cut deforestation out of the supply chain of the world's largest food and drink company comes just two months after Greenpeace launched a campaign urging Nestle to stop using palm oil and pulp and paper products from companies trashing rainforests in Indonesia.
You'll never guess what. Nestlé has only gone and agreed to our campaign demands! And you've made this possible. We really, seriously could not have done it without you. Now we need to move straight on to the next big player in the palm oil industry - banking giant HSBC.
Kit-Kats use palm oil from Indonesian plantations - threatening orangutan habitats
Okay, so Nestlé has received tens of thousands of emails, not to mention hundreds (maybe even thousands) of phone calls about the palm oil in its products, but we're still not seeing much in the way of affirmative action. So how about putting a huge advert in a major international newspaper to remind the executives that we're still expecting to see some major announcements very soon?