AUSTRALIA
AUSTRALIAN SUPERMARKET CHAIN WITHDRAWS APP-SOURCED TISSUE PRODUCTS
(News item supplied by RISI)

The Australian supermarket giant Woolworths has withdrawn a range of imported Indonesian tissue products due to allegations that their packaging contains misleading environmental claims.

"We've just decided to withdraw the product from sale and we'll work on how we withdraw those claims from the packaging in the short term before we put them back into circulation," said Woolworths' CEO Michael Luscombe. Last month, the chain was criticized by the country's Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) for sourcing its own brands of tissue and toilet paper from Asia Pulp & Paper (APP). Similarly, the representative body for the country's plantation products and paper industry, A3P, questioned the accuracy of the claims on the tissues' packaging that the products come from sustainable forest fibre.

"There are serious questions about the environmental, social and economic sustainability of APP and the Woolworths Select tissue products," said Tim Woods, CFMEU's secretary for the pulp and paper workers' branch. "If Woolworths and APP are unable to provide independent verification of the sustainability of the Select tissue products, those products should never return to the supermarket shelves," he added.

Woolworths' CEO admitted that the company did not conduct an independent verification of APP's sustainability claims, and that the sustainable forest fibre logo on its Select brand is an APP-proprietary logo. But he said that Woolworths has engaged the assistance of the green group WWF to review the "assurances and certifications we have relied upon to date." The chain has previously stated that APP's operations in Indonesia have recently completed the Forest Stewardship Council's chain of custody audit process. However, the CFMEU said APP is still awaiting confirmation of council certification and there is no guarantee that being audited means being certified. A spokesman for APP said the company has yet to release an official statement about the issue, but that APP implements a strictly documented chain of custody system. "The proper functioning of this system is independently verified on a periodic basis through third-party verification audits of APP's active fiber sources in Sumatra island, Indonesia," he said.

The last two annual audits, in 2005 and 2006, were conducted by the Swiss certification firm Société Générale de Surveillance.

Bigger issue

The union said the Woolworths issue has raised a bigger and far more troubling concern that puts the livelihood of its members in jeopardy: the importation of tissue products.

"[The Australian] operations are truly sustainable and the pulp they make comes from sustainable forests. However, they are under threat because of actions like Woolworths selecting discredited imported products over the Australian products," Woods said. A3P CEO Neil Fisher has expressed the same concern. "The Australian pulp and paper industry is frustrated that Woolworths is sourcing its tissue and toilet paper from suspect origins rather than using Australian-made tissue," he said.

The CFMEU sought a meeting with Woolworths management last month to discuss the subject, but the union has yet to receive a reply.