FSC and RSPO

WRM has been exposing the false promises of certification schemes for over two decades. This includes the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), as well as carbon offset certification schemes like Verra (with the label, VCS—Voluntary Carbon Standard). These schemes help greenwash corporate destruction, and they facilitate the ongoing expansion of corporate profit. Meanwhile consumers are deceived, forests are destroyed and local communities’ rights are violated.

Bulletin articles 19 December 2023
A compilation of articles from the WRM Bulletin aims to expose the damaging role played by companies and organizations involved in certification schemes. After three decades, what is clear is that the only “sustainability” that they guarantee is that of corporations’ business and that of certification industry itself.
Publications 25 October 2023
This compilation of articles from the WRM Bulletin aims to underscore the damaging role played by companies and organizations involved in certification schemes.
Bulletin articles 11 October 2022
On the occasion of September 21st, 2022, the International Day of Struggle Against Monoculture Tree Plantations, WRM launched the briefing “12 Replies to 12 Lies about Industrial Tree Plantations”.
Publications 21 September 2022
This publication exposes the most common misleading statements currently used by plantation companies. It’s is based on the briefing "Ten Replies to Ten Lies" written by Ricardo Carrere in 1999.
Bulletin articles 16 June 2022
There are currently 270,000 hectares of oil palm plantations in Ecuador. The resistance processes of the communities of La Chiquita, Guadualito and Barranquilla de San Javier in the region of Esmeraldas continue to generate outrage and solidarity among other communities, and internationally.
Bulletin articles 27 September 2021

The Palmas del Ixcán company has used multiple tactics to grab land, as well as a deceptive RSPO certification process and the use of “independent producers.” Despite criminalization of communities, their resistance grows ever stronger.

Bulletin articles 9 July 2021
Certification schemes seeking to legitimize activities that harm the environment and its people, with terms like “sustainable,” are a survival strategy for capitalism. In the framework of the energy transition, even the mining industry seeks to validate its unstoppable growth. A transition must happen, but in a fair and consensual way, not based on more green lies.
Bulletin articles 9 March 2021
Can the inclusion of gender-specific policies in the operations of oil palm companies and the RSPO certification scheme do more than cover up the violence and structural patriarchy and racism inherent in the plantation model? How, in such context, do these gender policies unfold?
Bulletin articles 9 March 2021

Despite the massive clearing of mangroves to make way for shrimp farms, and the oppression of fishing and gathering communities, this industry has access to certifications that not only facilitate its entry into foreign markets; they also conceal a history of violence against the peoples of the mangroves.

Bulletin articles 9 March 2021

The Korindo Group cleared Kinggo’s Indigenous People’s forests for its industrial oil palm plantations. Petrus Kinggo and other community leaders were persuaded to give up customary forest land with misleading and false promises. Now they are fighting against the FSC-certified Korindo. (Available in Indonesian).

Bulletin articles 14 January 2021
The RSPO certification scheme used the palm oil industry’s legitimacy crisis to strengthen the terrain to the industry’s own advantage by issuing certificates that supposedly guarantee sustainability standards. Standards that are run by and for companies related to the palm oil sector.