SGS (Société Générale de Surveillance Holding SA)

Asia Pulp & Paper Co. Ltd. -- one of the largest paper companies in the developing world and a target of criticism for its forestry practices -- planned to start using the FSC logo. For APP, the auditor was SGS Group, a Geneva-based surveying firm. Salahudin Yaacob, a Malaysia-based SGS executive who carried out the APP audit, said that under FSC rules, his role was limited to ensuring that about 472,000 acres of an APP tree plantation was legally owned by APP. Also in accordance with FSC standards, he gave a green light to APP to use pulp from that plantation mixed with fully FSC-certified pulp from companies in Brazil and Australia to make paper that APP could label with the FSC "mixed sources" logo. But environmentalists charge that APP has devastated a Delaware-size portion of natural forest on Indonesia's Sumatra island, putting the survival of orangutan, tiger and elephant species there at risk. Several large paper purchasers, including Ricoh Co. Ltd., of Japan; Office Depot Inc. in the U.S.; and Idisa Papel, of Spain, have canceled contracts with APP out of concern that its practices destroy rain forests. » link