FSC Statement on Greenpeace report 'Under the Eagle’s Shadow'

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) acknowledges the recently published Greenpeace report Under the Eagle’s Shadow, which presents the findings of an investigation into an international resources-based group, the Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) and its alleged links to ‘shadow’ companies that continue to engage in harmful deforestation activities. 

Updated Corporate Group Assessment Guidance 

The report recognizes FSC for including the principle of group-level accountability in the scope of the FSC Policy for Association. Greenpeace calls on FSC to make its assessments of corporate groups and its guidance for ascertaining the corporate group public. 

FSC has completed a review and revision of its internal guidance on ascertaining the scope of corporate group under control to deliver more clarity and certainty to FSC in defining the scope of the corporate group.  This work considers the learnings to date on identifying and concluding the scope of the corporate group and builds on the strengths of the Accountability Framework Initiative’s (Afi’s) definition.  

FSC will publish an updated version of the guidance for ascertaining the corporate group of remedy clients on the FSC website this year.  

APRIL-RGE Corporate Group Assessment 

In November 2023, the Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Ltd. (APRIL) Group and FSC signed a remedy framework agreement, in line with FSC’s Remedy Framework requirements, that initiated the implementation of APRIL’s remedy process. APRIL belongs to the RGE group.  

FSC commissioned a few months ago an independent third-party company to conduct a due diligence review on the scope of the RGE corporate group. We will ensure that Under the Eagle’s Shadow, along with other substantiated reports and publicly available information, is considered in the scope of the RGE corporate group. 

Any revisions to the corporate group, based on the above-mentioned review, will be published on the FSC website.