Aida Greenbury has resigned from the board of administrators of the Excessive Carbon Inventory Strategy (HCSA) Basis, the non-profit’s funding entity.
The previous chief sustainability officer of Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) introduced the information on social media platform X on Friday.
Greenbury joined the board of the voluntary framework established to assist forest-risk corporations meet no-deforestation commitments in 2020. She was a founding member of the organisation, and co-chaired the non-profit for a two-year interval with environmental marketing campaign group Greenpeace.
In a social media put up, she stated: “It is now time to proceed the struggle on different platforms that want me extra.”
Grant Rosoman, senior advisor, forest options at Greenpeace Worldwide, director of HCSA Basis and a member of HCSA Steering Group, stated Greenbury’s resignation is “an enormous loss”.
“Aida has contributed a lot to get HCSA established as a world no-deforestation initiative. She has been an ideal ambassador for HCSA, selling the organisation at COPs [climate negotiations] and world occasions, constructing relationships with donors, and in the previous couple of years supporting smallholders in HCSA. She might be missed.”
Kiki Taufik, world head of Greenpeace Southeast Asia’s Indonesian forests marketing campaign, stated that whereas Greenbury labored for APP, the Indonesian pulp and paper firm adopted HCSA as a part of its 2013 no-deforestation pledge, and she or he championed HCSA till she left the corporate in 2017.
After Greenbury left, APP’s dedication “started to unravel in with ongoing deforestation and peatland clearance,” Taufik stated, referring to a current report the environmental marketing campaign group launched on APP’s 10-year outdated sustainability pledge.
Greenbury advised Eco-Enterprise that she’s going to now spend extra time serving to smallholders implement deforestation-free practices, preserve their customary forests, and obtain truthful therapy by means of her function as sustainability advisor for the oil palm impartial smallholders union, SPKS.
“I’ve been humbled to be trusted by them to amplify their voice and energy. Smallholders can’t be undermined anymore,” she stated.
SPKS has additionally resigned from HCSA, efficient 1 December 2023.
SPKS joined the HCSA Steering Group and government committee in 2018 as the one smallholder member.
Sabarudin, head of SPKS, stated in an announcement that the organisation would proceed to implement and reference the HCSA toolkit for smallholders in Indonesia, however can be focusing its efforts on working in direction of compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). EUDR obliges farmers to show the place they cultivated their crops.
Quite a few different organisations have resigned from HCSA over the previous few years, together with the world’s largest meals firm, Nestlé, and palm oil corporations Wilmar Worldwide, Golden Agri-Assets, Sime Darby Plantation and IOI Group.
Publicly cited causes for quitting the organisation embrace governance points, Covid 19-induced price range constraints, and an overlap in perform between HCSA and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an eco oil palm certifier.
Conservation teams have stated that by leaving HCSA, corporations are flouting their accountability to report transparently on progress to satisfy sustainability commitments and are inviting rules such because the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation.
HCSA was arrange in 2014 to present corporations linked to the palm oil and pulp and paper sectors a technique that distinguishes areas that may be developed from people who needs to be protected.
