Three global manufacturing companies – BMW Group, Tetra Pak and Schűco International KG – have responded to concerns over the use of aluminium made from bauxite mined in the Atewa Forest.
Their positions have been communicated in letters to the Concerned Citizens of Atewa Landscape (CCAL), the grassroots movement advocating against bauxite mining in Atewa Forest. The three companies are all members of the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) established to certify members and their products in the bauxite-aluminium supply chain that meet its sustainability standards.
While the companies recognise the Ghana government’s desire to develop the aluminium sector for economic development and poverty reduction, they have firmly stated that their commitments to sustainability will not be compromised. All three companies pointed to their endorsement of the ASI’s social and environmental standards, and said they also want their suppliers to meet these same standards.
The BMW Group, a founding member of the ASI, said “Bauxite from the region of the Atewa Forest needs to be in line with the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UNFCCC Paris Agreement on Climate Change and Ghana’s voluntary national contributions towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. If this is not the case the BMW Group will not accept aluminium in its supply chains that originates bauxite from the Atewa Forest”.
Tetra Pak said that “sourcing aluminium produced with bauxite mined in the Atewa Range Forest Reserve at Kyebi in Eastern Ghana presents a level of risk that is completely unacceptable to Tetra Pak… No matter how high the environmental standards that are applied, any form of mining at this site will have an unavoidable destructive impact on the values inherent in such a natural habitat”.
Click on the link below to download the full press statement
