In an outrageous case of greenwashing, Indonesia’s second-worst deforester of recent years has been granted ‘sustainable’ status by one of the world's leading wood certification schemes. The scandal underlines how voluntary certification has time and again failed to protect the world’s forests, and how only legislation can force companies to truly prioritise sustainability.  

In November 2024, the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) gave its seal of approval to the infamous Indonesian company PT Industrial Forest Plantation (PT IFP), allowing products made from timber grown in the company’s concession to be sold as ‘sustainable’.

The PEFC logo, featuring two green trees, is familiar to consumers around the world, found on wood products from furniture to tissue paper. It is meant to reassure buyers that the wood came from a sustainable source and a company that follows basic sustainability principles. Yet between 2016 and 2022, PT IFP destroyed 22,000 hectares (ha) of natural forest in central Borneo – an area roughly the size of Amsterdam.

The true cost

This area was until recently covered by lush, towering rainforest, alive with the echoing calls of gibbons, the heavy wingbeats of hornbills and the rustle of sun bears foraging on the forest floor. Located between the Kahayan and Kapuas rivers in central Borneo, this region was recognised as a key stronghold for orangutans in a 2016 government-backed assessment, and in 2022, approximately half of PT IFP’s concession alone was estimated to be orangutan habitat. The surrounding forest is also home to Indigenous (Dayak) communities, who rely on it for their livelihoods, cultural practices and spiritual identity.  Today, much of this rich, ecological tapestry has been replaced by rigid grids of monoculture acacia and eucalyptus plantations.

Greenwashing destruction

PEFC is a global umbrella body based on national-level certification schemes. When a national scheme’s rules for sustainable forest management are judged to meet PEFC’s standards, products certified under that scheme may be sold internationally with the ‘sustainable’ PEFC logo. 

In Indonesia, the PEFC-endorsed Indonesian Forestry Certification Cooperation (IFCC) Standard is supposed to exclude timber plantations on land that was deforested after 31 December 2010, whether that forest was  primary or secondary forest, with narrow exceptions for small areas of deforestation which do not harm ecologically or culturally important areas and have ‘demonstrable long-term social, economic and conservation benefits.’

In July 2024, PT IFP was assessed against the IFCC Sustainable Forest Management standard by auditing company Mutu International, and was deemed compliant, despite having destroyed  29,075ha of secondary dryland forest between April 2010 and June 2024. Of this, 19,454ha was converted into plantation forest, while 9622ha was converted into non-plantation forest. The company became PEFC-certified just four months later. 

When questioned about this, PEFC International told us that only 81,534ha of PT IFP’s 100,989-ha concession have been certified, with the remaining area excluded from certification due to natural forest clearance since 2010, including 3176ha that was deforested in 2023.

By this logic, the scheme offers virtually no incentive for plantation companies to protect natural forests in their concessions. By failing to apply the 2010 deforestation cut-off across the entire concession, PEFC effectively lets major deforesters game the system. They can separate their land into ‘sustainably managed’ forest – typically mature acacia and eucalyptus plantations grown on land deforested before 2010 – and areas where they continued clearing forest long after that date. Once all remaining natural forest has been cleared and the resulting deforestation timber sold, companies can then seek certification for their mature plantations, with no obligation to address the environmental or social harms caused by post-2010 deforestation, nor to restore a single hectare of destroyed forest. 

PT IFP first publicly stated its objective to achieve sustainable forest management in line with the IFCC Standard in a February 2021 mission statement. By August 2023, it had formalised this commitment in a Sustainable Forest Management Policy, pledging to comply with the standard and to “not significantly convert natural forests to plantations”. Yet despite these promises, its IFCC audit reveals that the company converted 334ha of natural forest between August 2023 and June 2024, with restoration plans scheduled for 2028. This means that PT IFP continued to clear forest long after adopting its policy – a fact explicitly acknowledged by the IFCC auditor. Why didn’t this raise alarm bells, signalling that PT IFP was an irresponsible company incapable of honouring a basic commitment to halt forest conversion after years of large-scale destruction?   

A systematic issue

What’s more, this is not an isolated case. For example, the six plantation companies owned by the secretive PT Borneo Hijau Lestari group, which has been linked to Indonesian conglomerate Royal Golden Eagle (though RGE has denied any association), are all PEFC-certified despite widely documented cases of environmental and rights abuses. Five of these companies became certified in January 2024, while the sixth was certified in October 2023. PT Santan Borneo Abadi, which operates a 37,825ha industrial timber concession in eastern Borneo, deforested 12,252ha between 2016 and the end of October 2020, while PT Mahakam Persada Sakti cleared 1837ha in the same time period.  

Laws not labels

Along with other voluntary certification schemes, PEFC has positioned itself as a tool to facilitate compliance with the upcoming European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), a new law that will prohibit the import of commodities linked to deforestation, including wood products, into the EU. In a recent public statement, PEFC Secretary General Michael Berger said: “PEFC certification aligns with the EUDR and goes further by covering vital social, economic, and environmental issues… Consumers can be assured that products carrying the PEFC label originate in a sustainably managed forest and that the company sources its forest-based materials responsibly.” Yet PEFC-certified products can still come from companies behind some of Indonesia’s worst deforestation: a striking contradiction between its claims and its practice.  

While we have not found evidence that wood from areas deforested since 2020 – the EUDR’s cut-off date – has been sold as PEFC-certified, – any wood coming from PT IFP could be at high risk of non-compliance with the regulation when it comes into effect. Our recently published report Risky Business reveals how PT IFP was selling natural forest timber produced through deforestation in 2024 to timber companies that export to Europe, and argues that European importers should only buy from companies with no recent deforestation in their supply chains. 

According to the company’s audit report, PT IFP’s concession contains 27,982ha of plantation forest. If 19,454ha of this are non-compliant with PEFC standards due to forest conversion after 2010, that means only 30 per cent of PT IFP’s plantation wood can legitimately be sold as PEFC-certified. Non-certified areas, where land clearance continued as recently as 2023, are adjacent to certified areas, with no clear physical separation, seemingly leading to a high risk of mixing wood from certified and non-certified areas. While PEFC International assured us that safeguards exist to prevent mixing, they did not detail what these are. 

Even if there is segregation and all PEFC-certified wood originates from old plantations developed before 2010, surely this still ultimately defeats the purpose of certification if consumers seeking sustainable products are ultimately buying from a company responsible for extensive deforestation?  

Rewriting the rules

The fundamental weaknesses in voluntary certification systems have allowed large segments of the Indonesian timber industry to present an inaccurate image of sustainability. Despite PEFC’s claims that it can aid EUDR compliance, European companies must not rely on ‘green labels’, but conduct their own rigorous due diligence to ensure there is no risk of deforestation wood in their supply chains. 

If it is to maintain any real significance for consumers, PEFC International should revoke PT IFP’s certification, and revise its standards to exclude any company that has cleared natural forest since 2010 (bringing it closer in line with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards on forest conversion). Without these changes, it risks becoming not just obsolete in the face of stronger supply chain legislation, but a greenwashing tool for some of the planet’s worst environmental offenders.   


Notes: All links referenced were operational on December 10, 2025 – Auriga Nusantara and Earthsight have copies –

contact info@auriga.or.id or info@earthsight.org.uk.