Stand.earth: P&G fails on forests in disappointing shareholder update

Company's new environmental commitments don't adequately address degradation of climate-critical intact forests, human rights abuses in its supply chains

CINCINNATI, March 30, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The world's largest consumer goods company, Procter & Gamble, has outlined its plans to investors to address issues with its forest sourcing and degradation in its supply chains — concerns initially raised by shareholders at the company's annual meeting in October 2020.

International environmental advocacy groups Stand.earth, NRDC, Friends of the Earth, Rainforest Action Network, and Environment America are expressing extreme disappointment at the new commitments, which fail to adequately address how the company will end deforestation, the degradation of intact primary forests and threatened species habitat, and associated human rights abuses in its supply chains.

For years, the groups have raised concerns over how P&G is complicit in the destruction of the world's critical forests — including in the boreal forest of Canada, where the company sources some of its fiber to make products like Charmin and Bounty, and the tropical forests of Indonesia and Malaysia, where it sources palm oil for products including Head & Shoulders and Pantene. Intact or primary forests like the boreal have never been industrially logged, and provide ecosystem functions critical to mitigating the worst impact of climate change.

"To the untrained eye, these new environmental commitments from P&G might look promising. But unfortunately, they allow P&G to continue making toilet paper from globally important primary forests and threatened species habitat — during a climate and biodiversity crisis, which is greenwashing at its finest," said Tyson Miller, Forest Programs Director at Stand.earth.

Environmental advocacy groups have been meeting with P&G executives for months to outline what the company needs to do to clean up its supply chains. Their concerns center around the company's relationships with pulp suppliers who log in key intact areas of the boreal that are home to threatened species of caribou (reindeer). The Canadian federal government established scientific thresholds to ensure the survival of these species, but none of Procter & Gamble's suppliers are required to stop logging in threatened areas that cross these thresholds.

The groups also raised concerns about controversial palm oil suppliers associated with ongoing deforestation and widespread human rights abuses, including the use of forced labor and the violation of Free, Prior and Informed Consent.

In the case of both controversial pulp and palm oil suppliers, P&G has failed to outline clear accountability mechanisms and comprehensive thresholds for suspending and terminating bad actors. 

Read more about the critiques of P&G's new environmental commitments: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/shelley-vinyard/deflect-distract-ignore-pgs-greenwashing-continues

P&G's recent announcement comes more than two years after the launch of the Issue with Tissue campaign against the company for making toilet paper and tissue products from endangered forests and threatened species habitat.  

SOURCE Stand.earth

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