Support for the fuel from companies like H&M, Adidas and Inditex risks delaying a transition to cleaner energy sources and increasing deforestation, the organisations said.
Business of Fashion-Big brands’ efforts to get coal out of their supply chains by encouraging a shift to biomass like wood pellets and rice husks is a “greenwashing tactic” that risks delaying a transition to cleaner energy sources and increasing deforestation, a group of 16 Indonesia-based environmental advocacy organisations have said.
In an open letter to the industry published earlier this week, organisations including Rainforest Action Network and Friends of the Earth Indonesia warned that the fashion industry’s current decarbonisation strategies have failed to take into account the detrimental impact of biomass on communities in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia.
Existing plans by the Indonesian government to scale up its use of the feedstock to meet renewable energy targets have already put some two million hectares of natural forest at risk in the country, according to analysis by Trend Asia, another signatory of the letter.
The fashion industry is an important part of the Indonesian economy and highly influential on the country and the potential for further expansion of biomass to fuel the sector “is alarming,” the letter said.
Photo by Jefri Tarigan/Trend Asia