AUSTRALIA - An activist group wants shareholders of Australasia retailer Woolworths Ltd to pressure the supermarket chain into stopping the sourcing of paper products from one of Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) because of what it claims is the pulp giant’s poor environmental record.

‘Wake Up Woolworths’ will get underway on Thursday, 12 June, with letters sent by the campaign organisers, who are funded mainly by the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU), to Woolworths Ltd shareholders asking them to put pressure on the grocery giant to end its supplier relationship with one of the largest pulp company worldwide.

APP is a source of the company's Select Brand of paper products.

Tim Woods, the campaign spokesman of the Wake Up Woolworths campaign, and the secretary of CFMEU’s Pulp & Paper Workers’ branch, said the letter would also ask shareholders to consider what form of resolution they would support at Woolworth's annual general meeting in November later this year.

Woods added, "Starting from World Environment Day (Thursday), Woolworths shareholders are being asked to take real action to end Woolworths's relationship with Asia Pulp & Paper, the world's least sustainable pulp and paper company.

"Instead of doing the right thing and dumping APP, Woolworths continues to stock the products under its own heavily promoted Select Brand label."

In September 2007, PackWebasia reported that Woolsworth had to recall its own Select brand of toilet paper and tissues after a claim on the packaging stating that the products were sourced from “sustainable forest fibre from an environmentally responsible company”, eluding to APP, were found to be untrue.

The Indonesian Center for International Forestry Research said that as much as 70% of APP’s wood supply were from the clearing of natural forests in Sumatra, Indonesia.

After Woolsworth tried to defend its Select brand with claims that APP was soon to be accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the eco council rebutted the retailer by announcing that there was no evidence that the Woolworths products were environmentally sound as stated on the label.

Weeks after the recall, Woolworths returned the Select brand products to the shelves without the environmental label claims.

Fiona Wain, chief executive of think tank Environment Business Australia, as well as a member of the Woolworths’ sustainability advisory board, said that the retailer does take the issue of environmental sustainability seriously.

She said, "I understand that in the immediate term the Wake Up Woolworths campaigners are not seeing the results they are after .... but Woolworths, from where I sit, are really addressing it and doing an awful lot."

Wain added that Australian jobs were the underlying issue behind the Wake Up Woolsworth campaign

When questioned, Woods did not deny that Wain’s comment.

"There is no question that Australian jobs are at risk by the continuation of the relationship between Woolworths and Asia Pulp & Paper," he said.

Woolworths has said that it is still under a contractual obligation with its suppliers but would make "significant changes" to address environmental concerns. A spokesperson for the retailer added that the supermarket giant would consider sourcing pulp from other parts of the world.

"The majority of what we have got now is coming out of China, not coming out of Indonesia, so we did shift a huge amount of production to China," the spokesperson said.

"That is absolutely something we are considering."

Woolworths emphasized that only one line of its toilet paper products comes from Indonesia, while the rest of its soft tissue products such as kitchen rolls, toilet rolls and tissues, came from China.

PackWebasia.com reported at the beginning of 2008 a report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) that accused APP of constructing a “legally questionable” massive highway for logging vehicles that would destroy one of Indonesia’s most important forests, the Bukit Tigapuluh Forest Landscape in central Sumatra, adding that “APP shows a total disregard for the ecosystem in their quest for cheap sources of raw materials.”

Another report by PackWebasia.com later this year told of US giant office products supplier Staples Inc.’s decision to cancel all its contracts with APP after an 11-year business relationship, citing concerns over APP’s “clear lack of progress in improving their environmental performance”.

APP claims on its corporate website that it “ensures the legality of its wood supply through its own chain of custody system of checks and balances” and that it is committed to the enforcement of a “100% legal wood supply to its pulp and paper mills”.

See related stories:

Woolworth withdraws APP products after eco claim is found to be untrue

Indonesia paper giant attacked by environment group

Staples cuts out Indonesian paper