The initiative, called Regenesis, was unveiled in Jakarta on Tuesday alongside a new “Forest Positive Policy”, which APP says represents a deeper commitment to forest protection, biodiversity conservation, and community empowerment across its supply chain.
APP said the new platform aligns with Indonesia’s 2025-2045 Biodiversity Strategic Action Plan and will embed restoration and social responsibility into its business model.
The company committed to creating an external advisory panel, forming a dedicated restoration unit, and adopting more rigorous monitoring and transparency mechanisms that apply to all of its business units, subsidiaries, operations, and suppliers globally. The programme was devised in partnership with consultancy Robertsbridge.
APP’s chief sustainability officer Elim Sritaba said in a statement that the new commitment represented the company embracing a more regenerative model that “goes beyond conservation” to actively restore ecosystems and support communities.
NGOs raise alarm: “A rerun of old promises”
Environmental campaigners, however, greeted the announcement with scepticism. Environmental Paper Network (EPN) International and Jikalahari, a coalition of Indonesian non-governmental organisations, released a paper on the same day, arguing that APP’s new commitments echo a pattern of “green promises” the company has failed to deliver on.
In 2013, APP launched its landmark Forest Conservation Policy after decades of conflict with environmental groups and a wave of global brands cutting ties. The policy pledged an end to deforestation in its supply chain. But according to EPN and Jikalahari, the company has not resolved legacy issues in its concessions and remains linked to deforestation, peatland destruction, and human rights abuses.
Investigations by NGOs have documented continued forest clearance, peatland draining, and violations of environmental law across APP-linked concessions. They argue that APP’s complex and opaque corporate structure – coupled with claims of independence between subsidiaries – has enabled the firm to avoid accountability while destructive practices continue.
The groups also point to unresolved human rights concerns, including land grabbing, harassment, forced evictions, and the violent suppression of communities resisting APP-linked operations. According to the EPN report Conflict Plantations, more than 100 communities across five Indonesian provinces remain in conflict with APP or its affiliates.
Meanwhile, APP’s concessions remain major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions through peatland drainage and the replanting of fire-affected areas with fast-growing acacia, which campaigners say worsen Indonesia’s biodiversity loss and haze crises.
According to estimates from conservation groups, APP has cleared more than 2 million hectares of forest in Sumatra and Kalimantan over its 40-year history and is involved in hundreds of conflicts with local communities.
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We need to see commitments delivered on the ground, in the real world — not just on paper (pun intended). It makes no sense to keep boasting about new, redundant commitments instead of properly implementing those already made.
Sergio Baffoni, senior campaign coordinator, Environmental Paper Network
Greenpeace: ‘rollback’ of no-deforestation pledge
Greenpeace also condemned the new policy, saying it represented a downgrade of APP’s long-standing commitments.
“Following the trend of many companies, APP has gone back to focusing on public relations rather than change on the ground by producing another piece of paper with lots of hollow commitments,” said Kiki Taufik, Greenpeace global Indonesian forests campaign lead.
The non-profit highlighted that APP has shifted its no-deforestation cut-off date from 2013 to the end of 2020, meaning that tens of thousands of hectares of forest clearance by APP and its suppliers over that period are now considered “acceptable” under the new pledge.
“APP’s rollback of its cut-off date is nothing short of a deception of progress. This allows APP to whitewash deforestation that devastated forests, peatlands, and Indigenous lands between 2013 and 2020, undermining both trust and global standards. This is not progress – it is greenwashing,” said Taufik.
Between 2013 and 2022, investigations by NGOs revealed that APP-linked operations destroyed at least 75,000 hectares of critical ecosystems and 3,500 hectares of peatlands in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
The group also criticised the policy for dropping APP’s commitment to the High Carbon Stock Approach – an internationally recognised methodology for implementing no-deforestation pledges that other plantation firms have exited in recent years – and for failing to include explicit commitments for peatland protection and restoration.
Instead, APP has adopted what Greenpeace calls a “business-as-usual approach” of applying best management practices, which it warned could be disastrous for Indonesia’s carbon-rich peatlands.
In 2023, Greenpeace published a 10-year “report card” on APP’s performance, compiling evidence of broken promises, ongoing breaches of its conservation policy, and continuing harm to local communities.
APP’s Regenesis announcement comes two months after forest products certifier Forest Stewardship Council lifted the suspension of a controversial remedy process for APP, a decision which campaign groups warned was premature, in breach of FSC’s own policies, and could enable greenwashing on massive scale.
Then, APP chief sustainability officer Elim Sritaba told Eco-Business that the potential cost of remedy for the company would not be possible to determine until baseline assessments are made. She predicted that APP could be FSC-certified within two to three years, depending on the baseline.
APP was stripped of FSC certication in 2007 after revelations of destructive forestry practices, which cost the company an estimated US$300 million in a single year as major customers ripped up contracts with the firm.
APP has not responded to the latest criticisms from environmental groups of its new initiative.