News just in - would you believe it, another victory! After receiving nearly 10,000 emails, HSBC has sold its shares in Sinar Mas, one of the worst companies responsible for ripping up the Indonesian rainforest to grow plantations of palm oil and paper crops.
Coming so soon after Nestlé's decision to remove Sinar Mas from its supply chain and develop an anti-deforestation policy, it's fantastic news that's shone a light on the financial side of deforestation. To all who helped make this happen - thanks! And of course today's earlier news about the EU ban on illegal timber helps even more.
As far as HSBC is concerned, there's still the matter of the bank's forest policy which applies to some areas of its business but not others. They haven't said they'll be changing that, although a review is scheduled for September to decide whether to exclude palm oil from its Climate Change Fund where some of the Sinar Mas shares were being held. We'll be keeping tabs on the process and will let you know how it turns out.
So what next? On the financial side of things, we'll be asking other Sinar Mas investors, such as UBS and Credit Suisse, to follow HSBC's lead and divest their interests in the company.
And yesterday, Greenpeace released a new report - Pulping the Planet - which reveals how Sinar Mas is also destroying the rainforest to feed its ravenous paper mills. Big name brands like Walmart, KFC and Hewlett Packard are all using or selling their paper, and as a result of our report Tesco has already announced it will stop using Sinar Mas paper in its own-brand products by the end of this year.
In the meantime, we can reflect on the progress already made this year. Unilever and Kraft announced they would suspend their Sinar Mas contracts for palm oil. After a massive campaign, Nestlé followed suit and has adopted an 'anti-deforestation' policy for their business. Now HSBC has dropped its Sinar Mas palm oil shares.
So, we've achieved an amazing amount in 2010 to protect Indonesia's rainforests, and there's a lot more we want to do before the end of the year.
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