Planet Over Profit

The Problem

Large corporations have a tendency of exploiting third world countries for their resources. They often use their influence to produce products as quickly and cost-effectively as possible — with devastating impacts on local people and the environment.

Businesses cause extensive environmental issues through their production of commodities. The most harmful include soy, palm oil, timber, beef and leather, pulp and paper, and cocoa. These commodities are driving deforestation and habitat loss, as well as destroying the homes and livelihoods of local communities. The UK’s imports of these seven commodities has an overseas land footprint of 21.3 million hectares — equivalent to 88% of the UK’s total land area.

In Southeast Asia, 45% of oil palm plantations came from areas that were forests in 1989. Deforestation ruins habitats for animals, removes oxygen from the atmosphere, and releases previously absorbed CO2 back into the atmosphere. It also devastates indigenous communities who are forced from their homes.

Companies causing harm

There are many corporations using unethical methods to profit at the expense of people and planet. Here are just a few examples:

• Ikea — exploits forests in countries where laws and regulations are weakly enforced, releasing CO2 and destroying habitats.
• Astra Agro Lestari (AAL) — unethically takes land to produce palm oil, with companies including Unilever still purchasing from them.
• Cargill — delivers large quantities of meat to corporations including Asda and Tesco through intensive and harmful farming practices.
• JBS SA — over 12 years, estimated to have deforested 200,000 ha directly and 1.5 million ha indirectly.

The Solution

The Corporate Justice Coalition (of which Friends of the Earth is a member) is calling for the UK government to pass a new law requiring companies to avoid harm to people and the planet in their supply chains. At present, companies are not legally required to disclose how they produce their commodities — this law would change that, holding companies accountable for human rights abuses and environmental harm including deforestation.

Keep Forests, Don’t Deforest!

As part of the national Planet Over Profit campaign, we launched a local project to increase public engagement and raise awareness of environmental harms and human rights abuses in supply chains.

In autumn 2024 we invited the public to explore deforestation through creative means — poetry, digital art and visual art. We compiled submissions into a booklet which we sent to MPs as a campaigning tool. We hosted two events on 28th October 2024 at The Warehouse:

• Let’s Create a Rainforest — through storytelling, participants created a 3D rainforest together and explored why the rainforest matters to the animals and people who depend on it.
• Activism Meets Arts Workshop — an evening of discussion, art and poetry.

We launched the booklet at our Branching Out for Nature event on 1st March 2025 in our community permaculture garden, with craft and gardening activities and speakers from Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife, Compost Culture, Greenpeace and local storytellers.