By Andy Tait, Senior Campaign Advisor
It is three weeks since we launched ‘The Ramin Paper Trail’ exposing that the logyards at APPs main pulp mill in Indonesia are riddled with illegal ramin logs. We also released evidence showing that 11 companies, including Xerox, had rainforest fibre from APP in their products.
Although Indonesias authorities have yet to act on our evidence in Indonesia most of the companies we named are now taking some action to tackle their links to APP. In total eight companies, including Danone and National Geographic, have responded positively to the campaign. Among them Mondi’s response stands out because the company simply put its hands up and confirmed the trade links we had uncovered between it and APP, and agreed to tackle the weaknesses in its policies head on.
By contrast with Mondi and others, Xerox seems to be in a state of denial or confusion. Its public statement claims polices were ‘put in place years ago’ that ensure it has already ceased trading ‘on a global basis’ with APP. Our evidence reveals that Xerox has continued to buy directly from APP throughout 2010 and 2011. In both years, Xerox Hellas (Greece) imported copy paper directly from APP’s Indah Kiat Perawang mill in Indonesia.
Consequently, in December 2011, Greenpeace was able to buy Xerox products in the marketplace coming from APP. Samples of the Xerox-branded copy paper, named ‘Astro’ were bought in Greece and sent to an independent laboratory to test for the presence of Indonesian rainforest fibres (ie Mixed Tropical Hardwoods, MTH). Some 50 percent of the sample was MTH.
So, come on Xerox, lets face the facts: Given that your own-brand copy paper ‘Astro’ was made by APP in Indonesia using rainforest fibres and was imported into and sold in Greece in 2011, then your No APP policy clearly isnt working.
Help us convince Xerox to stop papering over the cracks in its policies.
