Greenpeace says KFC is ‘Junking the jungle’ by sourcing paper from Solaris
Greenpeace has released a report that accuses fast food brand KFC of sourcing its packaging from controversial paper company Asia Pulp & Paper, known in Australia as Solaris.
Greenpeace’s ‘The colonel’s secret recipe’ culture jam urges consumers to put pressure on KFC owner Yum! Brands to change the source of paper it uses.
According to Greenpeace, APP uses timber from Indonesian rainforest that is threatening animal species such as the Sumatran tiger and orangutans with extinction.
The website kfc-secretrecipe.com invites people to choose a KFC character to represent a ‘revolt’ against the fast food brand, which they can share on their Facebook page or Tweet.
The more a ‘revolt’ is shared, the higher it figures in a table of Greenpeace’s ‘Top revolts’. If a participant features in a table of the ‘Top 10 revolts’, they win a T-shirt.
The site also gives people the option to read the full report on KFC and deforestation and more on APP’s deforestation activities.
KFC Australia’s chief supply chain officer Michael Clark, told Mumbrella in a statement: “All of KFC Australia’s packaging is sourced from sustainable timbers grown locally and overseas. None of KFC Australia’s packaging is sourced from Asian Pulp and Paper.”
APP issued the following response:
Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) Response to the Greenpeace KFC Campaign In its latest report Junking the Jungle, Greenpeace has yet again mislead the public regarding the facts about Mixed Tropical Hardwood (MTH). The truth is the presence of MTH fiber says nothing about whether the product is sustainable or not.
It is perfectly possible for MTH fiber to come from legal and sustainable sources. In fact, independent testing done by Covey Consulting in Australia
Last year showed that MTH fiber was present in many products which were approved by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) under its ‘Mixed Source’ Certification.
MTH can be found easily in recycled paper, or it can come from the legal and sustainable harvesting of trees in primary rainforest. It can also come from tree residues that are cleared, after forest area has become degraded, logged over or burned, as part of a sustainable development plan.
You can find MTH, referred to as ‘rainforest fiber’ by Greenpeace, in everyday life. You can find it in your house flooring, furniture, wooden decoration, toys, musical instruments as well as numerous other items. As far as APP products are concerned, MTH does NOT come from the felling of virgin tropical rainforest trees in Indonesia.
APP has strict policies and practices in place to ensure that only residues from legal plantation development on degraded or logged‐over forest area and sustainable wood fiber enters the production supply chain. Just last week, APP announced an enhancement to its environmental strategy, by adopting the internationally accepted standard of High Conservation Value Forest (HCVF), with a view to conserving more of Indonesia’s precious natural resources.
APP is already taking steps to operationalize this globally accepted environmental and social standard developed by the HCV Resource Network.
Our announcement was welcomed by the Government of Indonesia, environmentalists and industry stakeholders alike. We deeply appreciate their support as we take these critical steps to evolve our business to further protect HCVF, including our commitment to suspend all natural forest clearance on our owned concessions on June 1, 2012.
APP deplores this distortion of the facts by Greenpeace. We are asking that Greenpeace stops portraying Indonesia and its leading companies as the villains in the fight against climate change at a time when our Government and the rest of Indonesian society are making huge efforts to preserve our rainforests and reduce greenhouse gas emissions substantially over the rest of this decade.
The paper company, known locally as Solaris, has engaged in an ongoing PR battle with Greenpeace, which culminated last year in Solaris employees abusing a Greenpeace staffer in the comment thread beneath a story about APP on Mumbrella.
@Adgrunt
Do you think this will work?
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Seems like a silly argument, the government should make hemp legal, you can get 3-4 crops a year and it makes great paper
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Not this bollocks again?
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Hemp enabled Britain’s empire to flourish. Makes great rope, fabric, all sorts and it grows anywhere!!!
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Greenpeace is objecting to “timber from Indonesian rainforest that is threatening animal species such as the Sumatran tiger and orangutans with extinction”
Yet they don’t seem to have any problem with the millions of chickens KFC butcher every year to feed Aussies. Isn’t that just a tiny bit hypocritical?
I say let the pampered tigers and rangas perish – Save Our Chickens! Support indigenous wildlife over foreign species! Think local, act local!
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Not sure where hemp came from in this discussion, but yes it has a long history in Australia, first arriving with the First Fleet.
Greenpeace still makes no sense. Why aren’t they pressuring the Indo government? Is it because they’d get a right royal kicking?
Where’s that berk Reece to explain why his previous campaigns have apparently done fuck all?
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#Madworld. Since when have chooks been indigenous to Australian wildlife? Do you know what indigenous means?
KFC have just switched from Palm oil (which is also devastating indo rainforests) to Canola oil. As a natural alternative. Even though Canola oil (which stands for Canadian oil because as most people aren’t aware there is no such thing as a canola plant) Is derived from the rape seed and is bio genetically modified. It seems this isn’t a problem for greenpeace.
I think Hemp production is a great idea. perhaps GP would solve more problems pushing that instead.
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@Madworld
You’re bonkers mate! If you sincerely believe what you wrote, there is actually something wrong with your head — no offense.
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Thanks to all the interest in Greenpeace’s ongoing campaign to protect Indonesia’s remaining rainforests.
A few points to make in response to some of the comments above:
* KFC Australia have indeed switched away from palm oil to canola oil and have said that they will be preferencing non-GE oil. However this campaign is aimed at getting KFC (and parent company Yum! which also owns Pizza Hut and Taco Bell) to introduce a global policy to address all its commodities which impact on forests and in particular to end trading with APP until it ends natural forest clearance.
* For those interested in the success of Greenpeace’s campaigns in this field and the rationale that drives this campaign, here is an article from last year which shows how the world’s second largest palm oil company, Golden Agri-Resources, adopted a policy not to clear high-carbon forests after Greenpeace campaigns convinced major palm oil buyers (Nestle, Unilever) not to purchase from the company until they ended forest clearance: http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi.....rainforest
We look forward to APP looking closer at it’s sister company, GAR’s new policy and following suit.
* There’s no doubt that other aspects of KFC’s operations need attention however as the world’s largest fast food company (a claim made by parent company Yum!), Yum! is a huge consumer of food packaging and a more responsible policy from them will have significant impacts upon the global pulp and paper industry and help encourage APP to end its practice of driving rainforest destruction in Indonesia.
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For a company this big, Yum!’s social responsibility is pathetic. Their lack of transparency around environmental issues only compounds the problem. I doubt Greenpeace aren’t going to back down in a hurry, and rightly so.
I have been a KFC customer for years and have always brought my empty aluminium soft-drink can home to put in my own recycling bin. How many other customers do you think do that? I’d be interested in finding out how much recyclable waste KFC dumps into landfills. A simple change to their store bins could fix this. KFC may see this as a cost, but imagine the positive, ‘green’ message they could put out? (Not to mention a competitive advantage against rivals like McDonalds.)
Yum!, it’s time to listen to what customers want.
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Reece,
That’s a lovely resumé of Greenpeace efforts. It’s just you’re not linking them to any desirable outcomes for the Tigers / Orang Utans / Rainforests from your actions.
Palm oil is still made – and in increasing amounts elsewhere. The Indonesian government is the one pulling the strings here. Why not engage them?
What went so wrong with your little Orang Utan dress-up session last year that means apparently no tangible benefit has occurred to the Indonesian plantations? What are we giving for now? To put another line on your CV?
I’d hate to think you were trying to Green-mail KFC merely because your plan of action is flawed at best and absent at worst…
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