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At the start of the year, an important order to A.Celli Paper by Asian Group APP, one of the major global paper and cellulose producers, was finalized. Five tissue rewinders that will be assigned to two different facilities belonging to the customer in China.

The rewinders model AC 882 are characterized by a paper format of 5,630 millimetres and attain working speeds of up to 1,400 m/min with paper that goes from 12.5 to 45 g/m2. With a parent reel diameter of 3,100 millimetres, the customer obtains a finished roll having a max diameter of 2,250 millimetres.

This order is the demonstration of the good business relationship that exists between the two groups as well the natural confirmation of repeat orders for other supplies in the past, such as the tissue machines purchased at regular intervals in 2005, in 2008 until the order in 2013 that included four systems, all delivered in 2014 and one already in production.

All this goes to confirm how A.Celli Paper is a valid supplier for every customer, and that it can meet diverse demands and obtain the loyalty of even large Groups having special requests such as APP, building long-term relationships based on mutual trust and on recognition of their respective competences and expertise.

About APP
As one of the world’s largest pulp and paper companies, Asia Pulp and Paper Group (APP) is responsible for delivering quality products to meet the growing global demand for tissue, packaging and paper. On any given day, our products find their way into the hands of consumers in various branded forms from all over the world.

Started in 1972 with Tjiwi Kimia producing caustic soda, now we run operations across Indonesia and China with an annual combined pulp, paper, packaging product and converting capacity of over 19 million tons per annum. Today, APP markets its products in more than 120 countries across six continents. Over the years, we have expanded our operations significantly through the acquisition and expansion of several of our pulp and paper mills. It’s our commitment to customer satisfaction that enables us to grow our share in paper sales worldwide and broaden our presence through offices in many countries. We believe ‘tradition and modernity go hand in hand’ which means we value long term relationships as part of our Eastern traditions, while we also are eager to embrace the modern values of innovation and efficiency.
Maintaining the integrity of our supply chain is also crucial to APP’s operations as well as our commitment to our Sustainability Roadmap Vision 2020. Learn more about APP’s path to operational excellence by reading our Sustainability Reports and Forest Conservation Policy.

The Eyes on the Forest (EoF) coalition has found that the forest conservation policy of Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), one of the world’s biggest pulp and paper producers, covers up almost three decades deforestation and destruction in Sumatra.

“The policy of APP protects a maximum of 5,000 hectares while the company has destroyed more 1.4 million hectares,” said Muslim Rasyid of Jikalahari.

Concession permits obtained by APP’s provider companies in Riau have destroyed more than 680,000 hectares of forests since 1984. Around 83 percent of the destroyed forests used to be home to the Sumatran tiger and Sumatran elephant.

“The APP’s new policy has no commitment to rehabilitate natural forests and peatland to compensate for serious damage in the past,” said Hajriansyah Usman of the Indonesian Forum for Environment (WALHI).

He said the appraisal of high conservation value forest (HCVF) and high carbon stock forest was conducted in concession areas that had just been cleared. This tactic decreased both the conservation and carbon stock value of the forests.

“Our analysis concluded that APP has manipulated the public with its conservation activities so they are unaware of violations it conducted in the past,” said Hajriansyah. (ebf)

The much-touted new deforestation policy of controversial paper giant Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) will save almost no forests in its main base of operations, Sumatra, Indonesia, a new report by NGO coalition Eyes on the Forest has concluded.

APP and Sinar Mas announced the policy in February as “an end to the clearing of natural forest across its entire supply chain in Indonesia, with immediate effect.” However, a new Eyes on the Forest (EoF) analysis that looks at all APP concessions – including those not covered by the moratorium - in Riau Province, Sumatra, found that the policy protects at most 5,000 hectares of natural forest. This compares to the deforestation of more than 2 million hectares caused by the operation of APP’s Sumatra pulp mills over the past three decades.

“We’re extremely disappointed. When APP published the policy, we thought it could be great news for Indonesia’s forests, biodiversity and citizens,” said Nazir Foead, Conservation Director of WWF-Indonesia. “However, after this new analysis for Sumatra, it appears that the company has announced a halt to deforestation only after completing nearly all the deforestation it could possible do.”

Among APP’s many natural forest wood sources are the concessions of its suppliers in Riau Province. They alone lost more than 680,000 hectares of natural forest between the start of the company’s Riau pulp mill in 1984 and 2012. Of that, 77% was lost in legally questionable ways, while an even larger proportion - 83% - consumed the habitat of critically endangered Sumatran tigers and elephants. 

WWF called on APP and Sinar Mas to announce a forest restoration commitment.

“The company is asking for a grand amnesty, for the ‘past to be forgotten’, leaving our country to deal with devastated ecosystems, social conflicts, on-going greenhouse gas emissions and critically endangered species who lost their habitat,” says Aditya Bayunanda, GFTN and pulp & paper manager of WWF Indonesia. “That is not acceptable, Indonesian NGOs are calling on APP to restore selected peatlands and forests lost in protected, High Conservation Value areas and to mitigate the damage its operations caused to surrounding natural forests, peat soils, and wildlife.”

Eyes on the Forest also highlights that SMG/APP’s much advertised High Conservation Value assessments are to be conducted in concessions where planned clearing is complete and the remaining forests are already protected by law or APP’s previous commitments. 

“Without a restoration commitment, these assessments have little meaning,” adds Bayunanda.

The report also shows that, despite previous company promises to exclusively pulp plantation fiber by 2004, 2007 and 2009, the company’s rate of deforestation remained constant between 1995 and 2011, apart from a short period in 2007-2009 when authorities were investigating alleged illegal logging by the industry, including APP wood suppliers. The rate slowed in 2012 – for the sole reason that there was very little natural forest left to cut.

“Our analysis points to one conclusion: APP once again seems to hope that it can fool people into imagining huge conservation benefits while overlooking past transgressions,” said Hariansyah Usman of WALHI Riau. “We don’t see the policy’s potential future conservation benefits balancing in any way the many unresolved issues stemming from APP’s deforestation legacy.” 

“Eyes on the Forest highlights that only full disclosure of all activities, including the status of all existing and planned wood supply bases and all mill expansion plans can prove whether this policy contains any real conservation benefits.”

Last week, NGOs in Kalimantan, on the Indonesian side of Borneo, found continued logging of tropical forest taking place in the concessions of two APP wood suppliers, who are supposed to be bound by the February deforestation moratorium. 

A serious red flag to WWF is the fact that APP’s mills continue to accept and pulp natural forest timber, under the claim that it was felled before the moratorium started on 1 February 2013. WWF-Indonesia calls on APP to close this loophole since it could be used by suppliers to feed wood into the mills from new deforestation, in violation of the policy. WWF has proposed a May 5 deadline to end their mills’ acceptance of natural forest timber, allowing the company over 3 months to transport stockpiles of wood cleared before February.

“WWF recommends that paper buyers do not rush into doing business with APP”, says Rod Taylor, Director of Forests at WWF International. “APP cannot be regarded as a responsible producer without redressing the harm caused by its past operations and removing any doubt that wood linked to forest clearing can enter its mills.” 

EoF published analyses of the report on its interactive online map, based on Google Earth’s Maps Engine platform, allowing stakeholders to evaluate some of the aspects of APP’s new forest policy and monitor its implementation. EoF will update its database regularly as information from other provinces and new details about existing concessions becomes available.

WWF welcomed the announcement by the Sinar Mas Group’s Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) stopped clearing Indonesia’s tropical forests and peatlands to allow an assessment of their conservation and carbon values. But the conservation organization urged paper buyers to wait for confirmation of the claims through independent monitoring by civil society before doing business with APP.

“APP today committed to most of WWF’s calls. If the company follows through on this, it could be great news for Indonesia’s forests, biodiversity and citizens,” said Nazir Foead, Conservation Director of WWF-Indonesia. 

“Unfortunately, APP has a long history of making commitments to WWF, customers and other stakeholders that it has failed to live up to. We hope this time the company does what it promised. WWF plans to independently monitor APP’s wood sourcing and forestry activities for compliance with its commitments and regularly update stakeholders on the findings,” Foead added.

APP runs two of the world’s largest pulp mills on Sumatra, where it produces the pulp for the toilet paper, tissue, copy paper and packaging that it sells worldwide. The company and its wood suppliers are responsible for clearing more than 2 million hectares of rain forest on the island since beginning operations in 1984, an analysis by the NGO coalition Eyes on the Forest found. 

“WWF hopes that APP’s new commitments will do more than just stop its own bulldozers, including protecting the natural forests in its concessions from all illegal activities and mitigating the long-term negative impacts its practices have had on all the peat lands, forests, biodiversity and local people in Sumatra and Borneo for which these commitments have come too late,” Foead added. 

“WWF has long called on responsible businesses to avoid sourcing from APP and until there is truly independent confirmation that APP has stopped draining peat soils and pulping tropical forests with high conservation value, we continue to urge paper buyers to adopt a wait for proof stance,” said Aditya Bayunanda, GFTN and pulp & paper manager of WWF Indonesia.

Mr Teguh Widjaya, the patriarch of the family’s pulp and paper business, oversaw the announcement today that no member of his APP group operating in Indonesia or China will accept any tropical timber felled in Indonesia after 31 January 2013 until company consultants have completed a full “high conservation value” and a “high carbon stock” assessment of their forest concessions. 

However, the company inserted a loophole in the commitment saying that for an indefinite period of time APP mills would accept trees felled before 31 January.

As a sign of good faith and the first demonstrable milestone, WWF calls on APP to have moved the supply of already-cut tropical timber its suppliers cleared before the self-imposed 31 January 2013 moratorium by 5 May 2013, the due date of its next quarterly forest policy report.

A fully implemented moratorium on pulping forests with high conservation and high carbon value would have a profound impact on Indonesia’s biodiversity, as well as on Indonesia’s carbon emissions. WWF urges all of the country’s pulp producers to stop using tropical forests.

Two P-RC APMP mechanical pulping lines delivered by ANDRITZ to APP’s mill in Jingui, Guangxi Province, China, have been started up in record time. The guaranteed production of 750 admt/d was achieved within only 2.5 months for Line #1 and 1.5 months for Line #2. This sets production records for single mechanical pulping lines in China. In addition, excellent pulp properties are being reported.

Focus on ‘green’ production

The lines at Jingui process eucalyptus fiber from plantations. A remarkable aspect is that the mechanical pulping lines operate totally free of silicates within the bleaching process. Effluents are recovered to reduce the environmental impact. White liquor is retrieved in the chemical recovery cycle and reused in the mechanical pulping process to a very large extent, resulting in a significant reduction in operating costs.

Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) has defended its latest report – Getting the facts down on paper – which outlines APP Indonesia’s commitment to sustainability, following allegations by a number of NGO’s including WWF and Greenpeace. APP says the allegations are false and the report has now been independently verified.

According to APP, the report contains numerous facts that demonstrate the paper producer has been fulfilling its obligations to operate in a sustainable and environmentally conscious way. The accusation is the latest in an ongoing public relations war between environmental NGO's and APP, which is a major paper supplier to Australian printers.

However following its publication APP has been subject to a negative publicity campaign from a number of environmental non-government organisations, principally WWF. The 95 claims made against APP included allegations of illegal logging, deforestation, impact on biodiversity, responsibility for forest fires, poor financial viability and human rights abuses.

Aditya Bayunanda WWF’s Pulp & Paper Coordinator for Indonesia says, “Satellites images have been capturing and documenting every single hectare that the company has destroyed for years. We have no doubt, paper APP produces in its mills contains Sumatra’s timber from dense tropical rainforest.”

Meanwhile, APP says that the independent audit, conducted by audit service Mazars, found that the facts contained in the APP report were accurate and, therefore, the allegations made by the environmental NGOs were indeed baseless, inaccurate and without validity.

A statement from Mazars concludes, “In our opinion, based on our work described in this report, the facts and figures included in the report are reasonably accurate, verifiable and supported by documentation and information provided by external parties.”

Appleton Coated LLC, NewPage Corporation, and Sappi Fine Paper North America – together with the United Steelworkers commended the U.S. Department of Commerce for its preliminary countervailing duty determinations against subsidized coated paper imports from China and Indonesia.

As a result of these determinations, the Department of Commerce will impose tariffs on imports of coated paper to offset the unfair advantage provided by subsidization. The Department of Commerce found that Chinese coated paper was subsidized by an average rate of 8.38 percent.

Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) producers Gold East, Gold Huasheng, Ningbo Zhonghua and Ningbo Asia Pulp and Paper received a subsidy margin of 12.83 percent, while Sun Paper received a rate of 3.92 percent. In Indonesia , APP/Sinar Mas producers Tjiwi Kimia and Indah Kiat received a subsidy margin of 17.48 percent. All other Indonesian producers/exporters will be subject to this same rate. The result of the Department's actions will be the immediate requirement that these importers of paper from the subject countries will have to post bond or cash deposits in an amount equal to the announced margins pending final resolution of the cases later this year.

The companies and the USW filed unfair trade cases on September 23, 2009 with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission ("ITC") alleging that certain coated paper from China and Indonesia had been dumped and subsidized resulting in injury to the domestic industry and its employees. The paper products covered by the petitions include coated paper used in high-quality writing, printing and other graphic applications, using sheet-fed presses with a GE brightness rating of 80 or higher and weighing up to 340 grams per square meter.

source: NewPage

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