Company
Mandarin Oriental

‘We’re not fans of your rainforest destruction’. Find out which hotel chain is under fire ... The Mandarin Oriental hotel group is owned by the Jardine Matheson conglomerate. Chairman Ben Keswick is also the chairman of Jardines and commissioner of the Astra Agro Lestari palm oil company.

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

‘We’re not fans of your rainforest destruction’. Find out which hotel chain is under fire

Forest Heroes’ latest campaign is designed to get forest advocates and concerned consumers riled up about what it sees as mass rainforest destruction by one of the world’s leading hotel groups.

Deforestation.

Its ‘She’s Not a Fan’ campaign is aimed at Mandarin Oriental – a play on the company’s celebrity-backed ad campaign, ‘She’s a Fan’ – and includes an investigation claiming to show that the luxury hotel group is closely tied to a company that has cleared vast areas of rainforests, and is helping drive the Sumatran elephant to extinction.

'We think that most Mandarin Oriental hotel guests aren’t fans of rainforest destruction.'

“The Mandarin Oriental group includes some of the most sumptuous hotels in the world,” said Deborah Lapidus, director of the Forest Heroes campaign. “But staying at the Mandarin Oriental sends profits to one of the most environmentally-destructive corporations on the planet. Mandarin Oriental’s chairman Ben Keswick needs to stop his company’s destruction of forests and elephant habitat.”

The campaign group’s investigation – including drone footage of what it says is “very recent deforestation” by Mandarin Oriental’s parent company – is online at www.shesnotafan.org.

The hotel group is owned by the Jardine Matheson conglomerate. Chairman Ben Keswick is also the chairman of Jardines and commissioner of the Astra Agro Lestari palm oil company.

According to Forest Heroes, Astra has cut down 14,000 hectares of forests since 2007 to make way for palm oil plantations. “Astra is responsible for clearing 27,000 hectares of ultra carbon-rich peatland since 2009. That clearing has released an estimated two million tons of climate pollution – about the same as annual emissions from 830,000 cars,” it adds.

“Even among palm oil companies, Astra stands out,” said Hanna Thomas, palm oil campaigner with SumOfUs.org. “While much of the palm oil sector has transformed itself through No Deforestation, No Peat, and No Exploitation commitments, Astra is the leading advocate for continuing to cut down forests.

“We think that most Mandarin Oriental hotel guests aren’t fans of rainforest destruction.”

Astra’s practices caused the Norwegian government pension fund, the world’s largest Sovereign Wealth Fund, to divest from the company in 2011. However, the fund still has $540 million invested in Jardine Matheson and its subsidiary companies. “We applaud the pension fund for taking early action to withdraw its support of Astra’s deforestation,” said Lars Løvold, director of Rainforest Foundation Norway. “Now it needs to complete the job by using its shareholder power to get Astra’s owners to cut their ties to deforestation.”