Sadly, business can seldom be relied on to police its own behaviour. We thus have little choice but to fall back on governments, NGOs and, not least, activists and the media to do the job. Yet the record of these outside watchdogs is also decidedly mixed.
At the “hero” end of the spectrum, we tip our hats to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a non-profit network of 280 journalists in more than 100 countries who collaborate on cross-border investigative projects. The ICIJ’s mission, as its website puts it, is to convince reporters around the world “to set aside traditional rivalries to uncover corruption, abuses of power and grave harms inflicted on the world’s most vulnerable people.”
Best known for exposing the offshore holdings of scores of politicians and public officials via the Panama Papers, its latest investigations reveal the flaws in environmental auditing and certification programs (including the Forest Stewardship Council) supposedly designed to promote sustainable forestry and combat illegal logging. A team of 140 reporters from 27 countries uncovered forest failures from Canada to Taiwan, the U.S. to Turkey.
One branch of the Deforestation Inc. investigation highlighted the failure of European governments to halt imports of Myanmar teak, a richly coloured wood prized for its resistance to sunlight and salt water. Demand from luxury yacht makers has ravaged the teak forests, and the trade has been infiltrated by organized crime and is now riddled with corruption. As a result, several countries have imposed supposedly tight bans on imports of teak from Myanmar. In 2021, as part of a broader crackdown against the military junta in Yangon, the EU also sanctioned Myanma Timber Enterprise, which has a monopoly on the country’s teak trade.
Yet the ICIJ investigation revealed that more than 3,000 tonnes of wood entered Europe from Myanmar in 2021, often routed through countries with lax border controls, such as Italy, Greece, Croatia and Poland. To make matters worse, customs authorities and timber industry associations have turned a blind eye to the illegal trade. None of this bodes well for the historic EU law passed in March that bars imports of coffee, wood, beef, cocoa, palm oil and soy tied to deforestation, says the ICIJ: “[analysis of] enforcement data raises questions on authorities’ ability to comply with the new requirements.”
The report concludes that the global forest-products industry remains largely unregulated despite what “companies tell consumers and investors about the sourcing of their projects and their commitment to helping end the global climate crisis.” Without the ICIJ’s work, chances are that message would never have been heard.
