Franky impact client drivers#

Golden Agri chief executive Franky Widjaja is said to have seen the writing on the wall: go out of business or submit to credible third-party monitoring.īut as for APP, this strategy only caused the company to dig in its heels.

Franky impact client drivers#

Environmentalists now appear to have the upper hand as a slew of big international, western-facing companies drop the now toxic APP brand whose name conjures up forest destruction and the eradication of orang-utan and tiger habitats.īy first pressuring Unilever and Nestlé into cancelling palm oil contracts with APP’s sister company Golden Agri Resources – also part of the Sinar Mas empire – forest campaigners successfully eliminated one of the two chief industrial drivers of rainforest destruction. Nevertheless, three years later, the situation has changed. And by targeting APP, environmentalists were taking on the fantastically rich Widjaja family – owners of the powerful Sinar Mas conglomerate whose patronage relationships ran deep into the heart of the Indonesian government. Due to the nature of illegal logging and the lack of transparency within the industry, it is very difficult to identify chains of custody. “Forest Destruction: You can stop this,” read the banner.īeyond those in the environmental community, however, few noticed, and among those who did, few thought there would be much impact.

The aim was to achieve a lockdown – at least for one day – at Asia Pulp and Paper’s largest mill on the island of Sumatra, and send a message to world leaders gathering at the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit. Campaigners continue to notch up victories against the paper and packaging producer APP, but it’s a giant company with a huge customer base – and the rainforest’s trees are still fallingįorce the Riau pulp mill to shut down, unfurl the banner and try to hold off the police as long as possible: for the 12 Greenpeace activists hoisted atop the 40-metre-high loading cranes, the intent was to take the battle to the frontline of Indonesia’s forestry war.