APP’s charity programme boycotted by
NGOs in China
Brian Ho 何智权
10 June 2012
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Greenwashing is becoming a
hot topic in China, especially in the social media. Asia Pulp & Paper
(APP), which is “well-known” because of being accused of deforestation of
tropical rain forests and destruction of ecosystems in Indonesia, is suspected to green-wash itself by supporting charity
programme in China.
Named as the APP Youth NGO
Internship Programme, it was initiated and managed by a SIFE team (a well-known
student organisation on social innovation) at the Shanghai International
Studies University, and financially supported by the Dei Ek Tjhong Foundation (Dei Ek
Tjhong is the founder and chairman of APP). The programme aims at encouraging
university students to be summer interns at grassroots NGOs as to build the
capacity of civil society in China. Since 2010, the programme has been running for
2 years, but people working in the NGO field didn’t recognize it until Weibo (the Chinese twitter) has become
so popular now.
At Weibo, some NGOs
and bloggers criticize APP is trying to green-wash itself by supporting NGOs in
China but ignoring its own issues on deforestation and damaging eco-system. The
criticism reached the highest level once APP is being awarded as “Excellent
Case Study of Multinational Corporations on CSR” (yes, “CSR”) and “the Ten Most
Outstanding Corporate Charity Programme
in China” by the China Philanthropy Times (《公益时报》)
and Global Charity (《环球慈善》), a newspaper and a magazine
on charity in China, respectively.
Some NGO practitioners
and bloggers started to lobby those 28 NGOs, which are beginning to involve in
the APP’s programme, to stop all-kind of cooperation with the company through
weibo, email and phone. In 5 days time, among 28 NGOs which agreed to involve
in the programme, 7 of them public announced that they will stop the
cooperation. Other NGOs remain slient but bloggers (involving me) agree that we
should not blame and shame NGOs due to various reasons.
Besides from the issue
itself, it also led to the discussion about the bottom-line of NGOs in
co-operating with business on programmes. Due to the limited resources and
source of income of NGOs in China, partnership with company is one of the major
means for financial sustainability. However, this issue makes many NGOs rethink
what should be done when similar case happened. We can also see the attitude of
people involving in the issue through a small survey. China Development Brief,
the most popular website for civil society in China, initiated an online vote
regarding people’s attitude towards the issue (http://vote.weibo.com/vid=1763361&source=feed_voted).
As you can see from the result above, over 62.7% of participants think NGO
should not work with APP and this kind of “Greenwashing” behavior should be
boycotted. 20.9% of participants said we should make the decision after
listening to the opinions of NGOs which work with APP on the programme, and 17%
of participants said the act shows APP is also working on its CSR and we should
give them the chance.
The issue also linked to
the definition of the term “Greenwashing”. Does it only mean “Green”? Or in
this case, the public should urge the company to improve on its core issues
rather than spending time and resources on charity programme? I’m also kind of supporting
the latter case. As a personal involved in the boycotting action, I forwarded
all the posts and encouraged NGOs who worked with APP on this programme to
withdraw. Reason behind is simple: I don’t
think a company should start its charity (the concept of community engagement
and charity is always mixed in China) programme if it hasn’t responded to the
international society’s criticisms on core issues such as environmental
performance. As a active blogger and CSR practitioner in China, I believe there
are responsibilities for me to tell the NGOs which doesn’t know much about APP
to understand what is the real situation.
At a certain extent this
case is quite controversial. What are your opinions on this?
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Blog in English: brianckho.blogspot.com
Blog in Chinese: blog.sina.com.cn/brianho
Twitter: @brianckho
Chinese Weibo: @何智权Brian
Email: brian.ck.ho@gmail.com
Email: brian.ck.ho@gmail.com
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