APP’s charity programme boycotted by NGOs in China

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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