Doc. InfoSAWIT/Senior Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs, Tofan Mahdi
Palmoilmagazine.com, JAKARTA - The management of PT Astra Agro Lestari Tbk (Astra Agro) has reaffirmed its commitment to the sustainable management of oil palm plantations. This commitment includes our efforts to preserve the environment and respect human rights.
This is conveyed in response to reports in various mass media about Nestle SA's plan to ask its suppliers not to buy palm oil from three entities related to Astra Agro. Quoting Bloomberg, information about Nestle's plan to block supply is known from a letter from Nestle, the Swiss food company to Friends of The Earth as seen by Bloomberg.
Astra Agro’s Senior Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs, Tofan Mahdi, said Nestle SA is not a direct buyer of palm oil from Astra Agro’s subsidiaries.
According to Tofan Mahdi, the plan to block supplies to Nestle SA follows pressure from Friends of The Earth (FoE), an international environmental NGO, which accuses Astra Agro of destroying the environment, committing human rights violations and land grabbing. Unfortunately, these accusations are baseless and do not reflect the real conditions on the ground.
"The material presented by the FoE which is used as the basis for Nestle's plan, is an old issue that has been clarified in the years when it happened," said Tofan Mahdi In an official statement received by Palmoilmagazine.com, Sunday (2/10/2022).
Astra Agro's management also emphasized that they had never criminalized the community, as alleged by the FoE. In the case of the theft/looting of palm fruit in the company's plantations in March 2022, when palm oil prices were high, which became the basis for the FoE accusation, Astra Agro fully handed over the legal process against the perpetrators to the authorities based on the applicable laws and regulation, without any interference from AAL or its subsidiaries.
Astra Agro is a company operating in Indonesia that adheres to all applicable laws and regulations. The Company has also implemented a sustainability policy with the principles of no deforestation, peatland conservation, and respect for human rights. Astra Agro's subsidiaries have also obtained ISPO (Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil) certification based on the prevailing regulations on sustainability.
"We take our Sustainability policy very seriously," he said. (T1)
