October, 07 2020, 12:00am EDT
![Stand.earth](https://assets.rbl.ms/50335756/origin.jpg)
Advocacy Groups, Indigenous Leaders Critique Procter & Gamble's 'Our Home' Climate Initiative
Concerns over company’s destructive forestry and poor labor practices come as company executives face important shareholder vote on resolution calling for better sourcing.
WASHINGTON
On Wednesday, October 7, advocacy groups Stand.earth, NRDC, Friends of the Earth, Rainforest Action Network, David Suzuki Foundation, and Wildlands League, joined by youth activists, and Indigenous and frontline leaders from Canada and Southeast Asia hosted a global webcast that uncovered what P&G forgot to tell the world during the launch of its "Our Home" climate initiative -- exposing the ways Indigenous and frontline communities have been historically impacted by destructive forestry and poor labor practices in the boreal forest of Canada as well as tropical forests in Malaysia and Indonesia, and calling for Procter & Gamble to stop greenwashing and start taking responsible action.
A recording of the webinar is available at facebook.com/standearth.
This important webinar could not be more perfectly timed, as Procter & Gamble executives face mounting pressure from green investor groups to implement better forest sourcing practices, including a shareholder resolution (page 78) that will be voted on at the company's upcoming shareholder meeting on Tuesday, October 13. See what activists are planning on the ground at P&G's HQ in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the week leading up to the annual meeting.
Procter & Gamble is one of the largest companies in the world. Unfortunately, the company causes significant harm to climate-critical forests, endangered species, and Indigenous and frontline communities for the products we all use -- like toilet paper, soap, and beauty products. When launching its "Our Home" climate initiative earlier this year to become "carbon neutral" in its direct operations, Procter & Gamble conveniently downplayed the massive impacts it has on the places it sources its fiber and palm oil, focusing instead on funding flashy projects like restoring mangroves and planting trees.
In Canada, Procter & Gamble's flagship brands like Charmin toilet paper and Bounty paper towels are driving the loss and fragmentation of the boreal forest -- a climate-critical ecosystem known as the "Amazon of the north" that stores more carbon per hectare than just about any other forest on Earth.
Despite pressure from environmental advocates and Indigenous communities, Procter & Gamble has continually failed to set time-bound goals to stop sourcing from Canadian suppliers that fail to meet federal habitat 65% intactness guidelines established to advance the survival of caribou -- a threatened species. The company turned a blind eye when caribou, an important species that indicates the broader health of the boreal forest, were listed as threatened due to habitat loss and fragmentation. The company is also failing to require its suppliers to adhere to the principles of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent when sourcing from traditional territories of First Nations.
Representing the critical perspective of Indigenous peoples living in the boreal forest, Joe Fobister of Asubpeeschoseewagong (Grassy Narrows) First Nation in Ontario, Canada said: "Procter & Gamble needs to require its suppliers to uphold Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) when operating in Indigenous territories wherever the operate." Grassy Narrows First Nation used tribal sovereignty to successfully implement a resource extraction ban on their lands.
"I'm astonished that we're still witnessing ancient and intact ecosystems and threatened species habitat in the traditional territories of many First Nations -- areas of the boreal forest in Canada that have never been industrial logged -- get logged for Procter & Gamble products like Bounty and Charmin," said Tzeporah Berman, International Program Director at Stand.earth.
"Procter & Gamble makes its tissue products entirely from virgin forest fiber, including a significant portion from Canada's boreal forest. Its actions create reputational, regulatory, and operational risk. Procter & Gamble has the resources and the responsibility to change its practices, and the company should do so as quickly as possible for the sake of our forests, our communities, and our planet," said Shelley Vinyard, Boreal Corporate Campaign Manager at NRDC.
"Canada doesn't know it, but it has a deforestation problem. We have exposed a massive and ignored footprint of industrial logging on Ontario's public lands. These are vast areas of treeless, barren logging scars that are persisting for decades in the boreal forest. We need to restore these logging scars and companies like Procter & Gamble need to step up and demand the same from their suppliers," said Dave Pearce, Forest Conservation Manager at Wildlands League.
"The primary cause of boreal caribou decline is habitat loss and degradation, primarily at the hands of industrial activities -- things like logging roads and clear cuts. In 2012, the federal government directed provinces to maintain or restore a minimum 65% of undisturbed habitat in each range. But industry rallied to fight back against the requirement, copying the tactics of climate change deniers," said Rachel Plotkin, Ontario Science Campaigns Manager at David Suzuki Foundation.
Speaking both virtually and from Cincinnati, Ohio, where activists are leading a multi-day vigil to highlight Procter & Gamble's bad behavior and encourage a "yes" vote on the shareholder resolution, local community leaders and youth forest advocates chimed in to the webinar with powerful messages:
"Procter & Gamble's actions in Canada are impacting not just the people who are local there, and not just those of us who are in Cincinnati, but it has a ripple effect throughout the entire world. We have learned what happens when we ignore science, and when people put greed and profit over care for our earth and the people in the world. Climate change and a loss of biodiversity are a threat to our future, and addressing them is a moral and spiritual imperative," said Rev. Nelson Pierce Jr of Beloved Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.
"If I want to have any shot at having a future, I need to be here, in P&G's house every single day, until they decide to stop flushing our forests, until they decide to respect Indigenous sovereignty, until they decide to get critical caribou habitat out of their supply chains," said Yousuf Munir of the Young Activists Coalition in Cincinnati, Ohio.
"I have a stake in the decisions that this company makes. We have a responsibility because Procter & Gamble is right here in our backyard. In a world that often makes us feel powerless, where corporations like Procter & Gamble loot Indigenous land and take the resources and leave a path of destruction behind them, we have been left with two choices: Either we give up entirely and walk in defeat, or we fight like hell to protect our people and our planet," said Jen Mendoza, a Cincinnati community activist and Forest Campaigner at Stand.earth.
"Procter & Gamble's direct operations directly impact vulnerable communities like Indigenous communities, not to mention their disastrous impacts on wildlife and other ecosystems. It really makes you wonder...why does Procter & Gamble continue to harm the environment? I understand the importance of climate-critical ecosystems like the boreal forest, because my generation is going to have to solve climate change," said Trison Braithwaite, a youth activist and YouTube star.
In Indonesia and Malaysia, Procter & Gamble brands including Ivory soap and Oil of Olay can be linked to palm oil suppliers that are known to be actively causing or contributing to deforestation and human rights violations in their commodity production or processing operations. Earlier this month, an Associated Press investigation revealed that P&G sources from palm oil suppliers who use forced labor and other horrific labor practices in Malaysia.
"It's not just the climate and biodiversity that's at risk. What we're seeing is that frontline and Indigenous communities are also being truly hurt by Procter & Gamble's unsustainable and unjust sourcing policies," said Brihannala Morgan, Senior Forest Campaigner at RAN.
"Broad tariff enforcement and blocking the import of controversial palm oil is only the first step to ending forced labor. We need binding agreements that include buyers, suppliers, and worker organizations. Voluntary promises by companies to stop forced labor in their supply chains -- which are not enforceable and are sometimes called 'corporate social responsibility' -- does not work," said Esmeralda Lopez, Legal and Policy Director at Global Labor Justice-International Labor Rights Forum.
"In order to be able to clear massive areas of primary forest for their plantations, companies need to first get control over the land. How do they do that? Through what we call land grabbing -- establishing false permits and committing direct acts of violence against the communities," Jeff Conant, Senior International Forests Program Manager at Friends of the Earth U.S.
"Astra Agro Lestari has never shown proof that it has a legal permit to use our land. My message to the company is: Even though you direct thousands of terrors at us, and send court summons against us repeatedly, we are not afraid," said Hemsi, a farmer in central Sulawesi, Indonesia who has been arrested numerous times for defending his community's land. Astra Agro Lestari is a primary supplier of palm oil to P&G.
"Right now we are doing advocacy in regard to the corruption and pollution by a subsidiary of Golden Agri Resources, whose palm oil is bought by Procter & Gamble. We call on P&G to stop buying palm oil from GAR. We also call onProcter & Gamble to urge Golden Agri Resources to stop deforestation, land grabbing, and environmental pollution in Indonesia," said Dimas Harton the Executive Director of Walhi Central Kalimantan in Indonesia.
Stand.earth (formerly ForestEthics) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with offices in Canada and the United States that is known for its groundbreaking research and successful corporate and citizens engagement campaigns to create new policies and industry standards in protecting forests, advocating the rights of indigenous peoples, and protecting the climate. Visit us at
LATEST NEWS
US Leads Global Surge in Oil and Gas Expansion, Analysis Finds
"The U.S. has become a petrostate and is still, even under President Biden, permitting new drilling," John Sterman of MIT said. "The developed countries don't show any significant efforts to limit drilling."
Jul 24, 2024
Five wealthy countries including the United States have led a global surge in oil and gas development in 2024, threatening international climate goals, according to an analysis published by The Guardian on Wednesday.
The U.S., United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Norway together are projected by the end of 2024 to have issued licenses for fossil fuel projects that will emit 11.9 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over their lifetimes—far more than in any of the previous five years, and roughly equal to a full year of emissions from China, the world's highest emitter—according to industry data analyzed by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and shared with the newspaper.
The five states are responsible for more than two-thirds of all oil and gas licenses issued globally since 2020, with the U.S. alone accounting for half of the world total. President Joe Biden's administration increased oil and gas licensing by 20% over Trump-era levels, and issued a record 758 new extraction licenses in 2023, according to the analysis.
"The U.S. has become a petrostate and is still, even under President Biden, permitting new drilling," John Sterman, a climate policy expert and professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's business school, told The Guardian. "The developed countries don't show any significant efforts to limit drilling."
Sterman pointed to a "fundamental contradiction" between rich countries' international commitments and their ongoing fossil fuel expansion. "We can't keep going on like this," he said.
Revealed: wealthy western countries lead in global oil and gas expansion
Surge by world’s wealthiest countries – such as the US and the UK- threatens to unleash 12bn tonnes of planet-heating emissions.
By @olliemilman & @ninalakhani https://t.co/esY5IuIfi9
— jonathanwatts (@jonathanwatts) July 24, 2024
The industry's grip on U.S. politicians has made significant policy change in Washington difficult. In the past decade, fossil fuel companies have spent $1.25 billion on federal lobbying and more than $650 million on campaign contributions, according to OpenSecrets data.
The Conservative-led U.K. government issued a surge of North Sea licenses in the first half of this year, but lost power to the Labour Party following a general election earlier this month. It's not yet clear if Labour will be able or willing to rescind licenses already issued. Currently the U.K. is set to finish 2024 with 72 licenses for projects that would create 101 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over their lifetimes—a 50-year high, according to the IISD analysis. Norway and Australia are also seeing major upticks this year.
Capital expenditure at the world's largest oil companies is up 60% since 2020, with $302 billion projected to be spent on well development this year, The Guardian reported. The fossil fuel expansion continues even though the reserves in rich countries are generally hard to reach, as more accessible reserves have already been tapped.
The expansion also comes in spite of disturbing climate news—2023 was hottest year on record, June was the 13th consecutive hottest month, and Monday was the hottest day, having broken a record set the previous day—and dire warnings from leading international institutions. No new fossil fuel projects can proceed if the world is to meet the 1.5° Paris agreement target, the International Energy Agency declared in 2021.
In December, at the United Nations COP28 climate summit, the world's nations agreed to transition away from fossil fuels, though the agreement was viewed by climate campaigners as weakly worded and ridden with loopholes.
Delegates from wealthy Western nations often present themselves as change-seekers in international climate negotiations, but the IISD analysis adds to evidence that such nations are in fact a big part of the problem.
"Fossil fuel corporations, and the governments that support them, will never stop unless forced to," Bill McGuire, a climate scientist at University College London, said on social media in response to the analysis. "Neither has any interest in the future of the climate, our world, or their own kids."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Arkansas Supreme Court Orders State to Count Abortion Rights Signatures
The limited ruling was called "a good start" by one pro-democracy group, as advocates hope to include an abortion rights amendment on November ballots.
Jul 24, 2024
Abortion rights advocates in Arkansas were cautiously optimistic Tuesday evening that the state government would count the signatures of more than 100,000 residents who signed petitions in support of an anti-forced pregnancy constitutional amendment, after the Arkansas Supreme Court issued a limited order calling on the secretary of state to begin the process.
Secretary of State John Thurston, a Republican, moved earlier this month to disqualify the petition that advocates had spent months gathering signatures for, claiming organizers had failed to provide information about paid signature-gatherers who had worked on the campaign run by Arkansans for Limited Government (AFLG).
On Tuesday evening, the court ruled that Thurston must begin "the initial count of signatures collected by volunteer canvassers according to A.C.A. 7-9-126(a)," but said nothing about whether signatures gathered by paid workers needed to be counted.
The order did not indicate whether Thurston is required to begin the second stage of the tallying process, in which his team would verify that the signatures are accurate and belong to Arkansas voters.
That stage would begin a "cure" period during which AFLG would be allowed to continue collecting signatures.
"We are heartened by this outcome, which honors the constitutional rights of Arkansans to participate in direct democracy."
AFLG turned in more than 101,000 signatures in time for the July 5 deadline, including an estimated 87,382 that were collected by volunteers and 14,143 gathered by paid workers, according to the Arkansas Times.
The state requires a petition for a constitutional amendment to have at least 90,704 signatures to qualify for the November election ballots—so if Thurston is required to count only the signatures collected by volunteers and does not have to initiate the cure period, AFLG's petition may fall short.
The state Supreme Court did leave open the possibility of an additional ruling on the matter, saying the panel "reserves the right to issue further orders and proceed in accordance with state law."
Despite the uncertainty, AFLG said in a statement that "the will of the people won" this round of the fight to ensure Arkansas residents can vote for abortion rights in November.
"On behalf of 101,000 Arkansas voters, 800 volunteers, and the AFLG team, we thank the court for upholding democracy in Arkansas," said the group. "We are heartened by this outcome, which honors the constitutional rights of Arkansans to participate in direct democracy, the voices of 101,000 Arkansas voters who signed the petition, and the work of hundreds of volunteers across the state who poured themselves into this effort."
The amendment proposed by AFLG would state that the Arkansas government "shall not prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion services within 18 weeks of fertilization" or in the cases of rape, incest, or "fatal fetal anomaly."
The pro-democracy group For AR People said the court's ruling was "a good start" and noted that at least three of the court's seven judges—Justices Courtney Hudson and Karen Baker and Chief Justice Dan Kemp—seemed "favorable to AFLG's arguments" that the count, the verification process, and the cure period should commence.
Matt Campbell of the Arkansas Times pointed out that AFLG could legally continue gathering signatures as they would during the cure period, before one officially begins.
"Just because a cure period was not explicitly granted doesn't mean AFLG cannot currently be gathering signatures," said Campbell. "The cure period just officially starts the clock, but signatures can be collected before that clock starts and still be valid."
AFLG said that although the matter is not entirely resolved, the court's decision was "reflective of our state motto: 'The People Rule.'"
"We look forward to that principle guiding the rest of the signature verification process," the group said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Israeli Forces Have Killed 366 UN Workers and Family Members in Gaza: Leaked Report
Confidential figures shed additional light on what's been the deadliest-ever war for United Nations staff.
Jul 24, 2024
A leaked report obtained by Drop Site estimates that Israeli forces have killed at least 366 United Nations staffers and their family members in the Gaza Strip since October, an indication of the grave threat Israel's ongoing assault poses to humanitarian relief workers and the enclave's broader civilian population.
Drop Site's Ryan Grim reported Wednesday that the confidential figures, assembled by the U.N.'s Crisis Coordination Center, show that three family members of World Food Program staffers and four dependents of U.N. Children's Fund workers were among those killed by Israeli forces. The total number of U.N. staffers killed so far is 195, according to the data.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the primary aid agency operating in Gaza, has seen the largest impact on staffers and their family members. The leaked report estimates that Israeli forces have killed 158 dependents of UNRWA staffers since October.
Israel's devastating military campaign in Gaza, aided by U.S. weaponry and diplomatic support, is by far the deadliest-ever war for U.N. personnel, who have repeatedly been targeted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Over the weekend, Israeli soldiers fired on a U.N. convoy heading toward Gaza City. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said that "the teams were traveling in clearly marked U.N. armored cars and wearing U.N. vests."
"While there are no casualties, our teams had to duck and take cover," he added. "Like all other similar U.N. movements, this movement was coordinated and approved by the Israeli authorities."
Targeting humanitarian relief personnel is a war crime.
#Gaza
Heavy shooting from the Israeli Forces at a UN convoy heading to Gaza city.
While there are no casualties, our teams had to duck and take cover.
This took place yesterday. The teams were traveling in clearly marked UN armoured cars & wearing UN vests.
One vehicle…
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) July 22, 2024
Grim noted that the leaked report is just "the latest in a series of alarming findings regarding Israel's actions in Gaza," much of which is facing famine conditions due to what U.N. experts recently described as a "targeted starvation campaign" by Israel.
During a 12-hour period earlier this week, Israeli forces killed at least 70 Palestinians and wounded around 200 others—mostly women and children—in a barrage of attacks on the city of Khan Younis, according to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.
The confidential U.N. data emerged hours before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress on Wednesday afternoon. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers are expected to boycott the prime minister's speech.
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the lone Palestinian American in Congress, argued Tuesday that Netanyahu "should be arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court," alluding to that body's request for an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister.
On Tuesday, hundreds of demonstrators were arrested on Capitol Hill during a peaceful Jewish-led demonstration against Netanyahu's visit and U.S. complicity in the IDF's mass atrocities in Gaza.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular