Plantation Sustainability Starter Pack
Want a secure and comfortable career guaranteed in corporate and operational sustainability within the plantation economy that perpetuates development aggression across Southeast Asia through ecocide and ethnocide?
Look no further:
Here is your FREE* Plantation Sustainability Starter Pack!
Let’s start with some affirmations.
Sit comfortably, adjust your posture, settle your arms loosely in your lap, open up your airways, take a few calming, knowing breaths, envision a beautifully healthy forest ecosystem lovingly enveloping the geological landscapes of Sabah and Sarawak..
And repeat after me:
“Private sector actors have made great strides in tackling challenging, multi-faceted global issues such as child labour. Let’s celebrate how far we’ve come.”
“We monitor and evaluate our various sustainability programmes rigorously, and provide extensive and transparent reporting through our annual sustainability reports.”
“We operate in areas which experience a dire lack of services and amenities. Local communities would be much worse off if we hadn’t rolled out our sustainability programmes, which we do purely out of our sense of empathetic responsibility in giving back to communities.”
“We are working to build collaborative relationships with various stakeholders including our private sector peers, government authorities, non-governmental organisations, and representatives of local communities. Fostering collaborative potential is a difficult and time-consuming process, but is necessary for systemic improvements, and we’re brave enough to do it.”
“We understand fully our local and international responsibilities, and are aligning ourselves with the United Nations’ recommendations and approaches for tackling social sustainability issues.”
“We play an important role in global supply chains to meet consumer demand, and thousands of employees depend on us for their livelihoods. We are contributing greatly to global and local society.”
.. and breathe.
Didn’t that feel good?
The beauty of the above statements is their applicability in various Big Sectors. Once you become proficient and experienced in making the above justifications with credibility and gravitas, you’ll be able to secure a well-paying job for as long as globalised capitalism can continue to dominate — which according to the IPCC should be another five or eight years!
Aren’t you enjoying the sweet fragrance of the cool sea breeze as it melds and plays with the light scents of canopy ferns while the comforting humidity of the warm tropical air hugs you and forgives all of the private sector’s flaws?
Can’t you breathe more easily now knowing that you are getting paid well to save the world imperceptibly slowly while your current, potential and future employers and their shareholders make a killing from ecocidal and ethnocidal operations?
Isn’t it all so exotic and wonderful to see poor local teenagers’ (all adults of course, we checked this morning) widely-smiling faces as they don impossibly clean and vibrant company-branded polo tees while gratefully picking up badly-maintained axes and wheelbarrows to harvest raw product to feed your broken business model, on land that was violently stolen from regenerative and peaceful indigenous communities?
Oh wait, don’t go, stay! What’s wrong? Perhaps you’d like a comforting espresso with a slice of Nutella toast topped with fresh bananas?
Hold this amazing vibrational frequency dearly, close to your beating heart as wholesome corporate benevolence courses through your veins.
This piece was triggered by Earthworm Foundation’s recent webinar on children in the palm oil plantations of Sabah and Sarawak, Malaysia. Earthworm “works with businesses to find solutions to environmental and social challenges within value chains.”
Much of this piece centres upon social sustainability, human rights and labour justice.
This piece is also inspired by and thankful for Leo Bottrill’s work at US-based MapHubs, who independently monitor palm oil supply chains around the world.
And now: breaking down the Plantation Sustainability Starter Pack.
“Let’s celebrate how far we’ve come.”
“The challenges faced are very great, good on us for being able to discuss them honestly.”
“We’re in some international, cross-sectoral working groups working to gain a better understanding of these challenges and the role of private sector in addressing them.”
“We’ve made several key policy changes within the firm and are building relationships with government offices.”
“We’ve created avenues for our employees to volunteer their time for the cause and are delighted at their enthusiastic participation.”
Just what are we patting ourselves on the back for? No, seriously.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) was founded in 1946 and received USD 7.2 billion in donations in 2020, USD 5.45 billion of which were public sector contributions.
World Vision International, an evangelical Christian humanitarian aid, development, and advocacy organisation, began working on developmental issues including child labour in 1975, 25 years after it was founded to meet the emergency needs of Christian missionaries. Its total revenue in 2019, including grants, product and foreign donations, was USD 2.90 billion.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice through setting international labour standards. Founded in 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and oldest specialised agency of the UN. The ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) was created in 1992 with the overall goal of the progressive elimination of child labour, which was to be achieved through strengthening the capacity of countries to deal with the problem and promoting a worldwide movement to combat child labour. The IPEC currently has operations in 88 countries, with an annual expenditure on technical cooperation projects that reached over US$61 million in 2008. It is the largest programme of its kind globally and the biggest single operational programme of the ILO.
These are arguably the three largest and most influential organisations working to eliminate child labour.
This is how the ILO thought the whole child labour thing would go in 2012:
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were agreed upon shortly after the Paris Agreement in 2015. Goal 8 within the SDGs is to “promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all,” with a specific target on child labour:
“Target 8.7: Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms.”
The 5th Global Conference on the Elimination of Child Labour has just ended in Durban, South Africa, organised by the International Labour Organisation and Alliance 8.7 to focus the global community against child labour into “accelerating action”, “sharing solutions” and “uniting and strengthening plans to end child labour”.
This is just the tip of the iceberg with regards to the international organisations and multi-lateral dialogues being held by governments, businesses and NGOs on child labour. It’s an industry that exists because the crisis of child labour exists. It must be having a huge impact, no?
How’s the performance of this multi-billion-dollar industry looking?
The number of children in child labour rose from 152 million in 2017 to 160 million in 2020 — 63 million girls and 97 million boys.
60% of child labourers work in agriculture, many in hazardous conditions, thanks to Big Ag and its colonial ideals of slaves on the plantation squeezing every ounce of “productivity” from pesticide-drenched monocropping.
But listen, what is the number one thing you can do to help end child labour according to World Vision?
With all this power and money faffing about the place, you’d think we’d have had international laws, regulatory organisations and enforcement bodies set up within the first, say, I don’t know, 25 years of deciding to tackle the systemic problem on any international stage — such that the number one thing we can do might NOT be “pray”.
But no. We’re still stuck at the “we need more information to understand this better” stage. It’s all very complicated and confusing because the information changes every year because time passes.
When our ruling classes try to convince us of their (mostly recreational) commitments to sustainability and social justice, let us remember that their intentions mainly centre around a guaranteed good-look career for life, literally profiting off the systemic violence they claim to work towards eradicating.
So let’s celebrate how far we’ve come by holding hands in a silent, inclusive, diverse, and gender fluid prayer circle.
“Please read our sustainability reports, much of the information you seek is already covered in there.”
“We are transparent about our efforts and we offer information on our sustainability projects readily and openly.”
“We are serious about sustainability and that is why we invest heavily in sustainability reporting, in order to cover all our sustainability activities extensively and openly.”
“We can be trusted to self-assess and self-regulate. We are meeting or exceeding reporting conventions. This shows how much we value sustainability within our business.”
The best critique on this narrative has already been written: Kenneth Pucker of Berkshire Partners wrote Overselling Sustainability Reporting, coining the phrase “Sustainability, Inc.”, in the Harvard Business Review in May 2021.
I won’t spoil Pucker’s article for you, but this short excerpt is telling enough:
“A closer look at the evidence suggests that the impact of the measurement and reporting movement has been oversold. During this same 20-year period of increased reporting and sustainable investing, carbon emissions have continued to rise, and environmental damage has accelerated. Social inequity, too, is increasing.”
The sustainability report is more Comms department than Legal department, and is arguably the series of veils that obscures operations from actual justice-centred sustainability. It’s an expensive annual PR event with the objective of everything except actual structural or systemic change.
If the money spent on sustainability reporting were spent on redressing harms brought about by operational practices, we might’ve gotten somewhere a little bit sooner.
“If we didn’t implement the projects we did, our beneficiary families would be far worse off.”
“There is a wide governance gap. Government is inadequate and unable to fulfil their responsibilities. It is out of magnanimity that we are helping to address some of these gaps.”
“Rural communities are so disenfranchised that they are very grateful for anything that we can provide, even though we are not their government.”
“We are working in very difficult conditions in our projects, focussing on the people most in need, such as orphaned children.”
The most overtly colonial message within your Plantation Sustainability Starter Pack (FREE with your Global North Plus ticket to Intro to Decolonial Sustainability) comes in the form of an unashamed demand for gratefulness from those experiencing the systemic violence extractive industry firms continue to insist on inflicting.
Just as “no one wants to work anymore!” puts slave-wage businesses six feet under for good, perhaps extractive industry firms should consider closing up shop in under-developed areas where “governance gaps” exist if they can’t guarantee the wellbeing of everyone and everything involved in and affected by their inhumane, degenerative business models.
That might be the better alternative to going to work daily creating and implementing supposedly “feel-good” sustainability programmes where folk are forced to choose to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.
“We’re working on collective action through building collaborations with various stakeholders.”
“We’re focussing on industry-wide change to tackle this issue systemically.”
“Let’s not play the blame game, let’s be nice, polite and professional in working with our peers.”
“Collaborative action is hard work, let’s recognise that and appreciate the process.”
“Congratulations to everyone working in our private firms and our partners to address challenging issues in this difficult area.”
“We’re very welcoming of any collaboration interest from local communities.”
Appeasement through extended, forever delay is a common oppressor tactic. It isn’t a full-on outright denial of responsibility, but rather a sly widening of accountability towards “bringing industry peers together” to “generate appetite for systemic change” and “find out the whole truth” so that we can eventually “stop the crisis once and for all” in one fell swoop.
BONUS META: “We are important for the world and hence need to sustain our business model.”
“We need to be accountable to shareholders and investors by meeting our quarterly and annual growth targets.”
“We play an important and necessary role in global supply chains in order to meet growing consumer demand.”
“We are big job creators. Thousands of employees depend on us for their livelihoods.”
“Ecocide and ethnocide are not our intention and hence not our fault. These are things we aren’t responsible for, so we don’t measure them and don’t hold ourselves accountable for them.”
Before such business models “globalised” the “post-colonial” world, Earth was precisely, definitively, undeniably NOT heading for planetary systems collapse.
The Universal Basic Income and Antiwork movements argue clearly that the concept of “work” or “labour” in the first place coming to dominate our lives shows how successful patriarchal, exploitative colonial propaganda of self-worth through labour amongst the masses have been in justifying and rationalising our ruling classes’ demand for ownership, control and profit. These concepts have ingrained themselves into our globalised Westernised cultures that ironically peddle “freedom”.
* Redeem your Plantation Sustainability Starter Pack today!
Your Plantation Sustainability Starter Pack is 100% FREE with your Global North Plus ticket to Intro to Decolonial Sustainability!
Contact us at congratulations@wokeness.life to redeem your Starter Pack today. While stocks last. Offer ends 2030.
P.S.:
The Plantation Sustainability Starter Pack has received enthusiastic and inquisitive response from B. Lorraine Smith, who has asked three questions:
“Am I a good fit for the Starter Pack?”
“Will the Starter Pack help me address the paradox between inspiration and existential dread I feel in my sector?”
“Do you have any guidance on the order of the Starter Pack steps in navigating the unknown unknowns?”
We have responded to her beautiful queries in this recent reply, copied in below:
Dear B. Lorraine Smith,
Thank you for your interest and enthusiasm in our work. Here at wokeness.life, we take pride in offering world-class thought leadership and consultancy in the very challenging area of Plantation Sustainability, which we see as ripe for opportunity to bring about a beautiful, regenerative planet where humans are central to its beauty.
It is imperative for us to work together to address these challenges urgently, as required by the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. In particular, Target 8.7 on the elimination of child labour has a deadline of 2025! We have a lot of work to do in a very short period of time to still be able to claim success.
At wokeness.life, we have already booked ahead a series of Mediterranean yacht parties (we have made repeated appeals to rent the luxury yachts confiscated from Russian oligarchs by European authorities *wink wink*) and #girlpower celebrities (Rihanna has given us a tentative thumbs up, while Elsa Majimbo and Mimiyuuuh have already confirmed — don’t worry, we have also extended invitations to Célia Xakriabá, Greta Thunberg, Xiye Bastida and of course Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) in 2025, and would be sorely, sorely disappointed to have to shelve our plans. We hope #naturefuture will consider joining us in working towards being able to celebrate the elimination of child labour globally in 2025.
Thank you for noticing our meticulous attention to detail and quality, and we are so grateful for your very insightful questions. At wokeness.life, we are very supportive of reflective introspection and self care, there is almost nothing more important (except maybe working towards sustainability certification after deep introspection)!
To answer your beautiful questions:
“Am I a good fit for the Starter Pack?”
Our Plantation Sustainability Starter Pack is for EVERYONE. We recognise that different professionals and different companies may be on different parts of the journey, but we have strived to ensure the Starter Pack supports everyone where they are! We believe strongly in moving at the speed of trust and creating space for organisations to work effectively and systematically towards eliminating the structural oppression they profit from. Systems change through international, multi-lateral collaboration is hard work!
“Will the Starter Pack help me address the paradox between inspiration and existential dread I feel in my sector?”
Yes! The Starter Pack is designed to help you find your place in your sector, as explained above.
It can help you address the paradox by focussing on how you can apply the Starter Pack in specific situations. The Starter Pack is designed to be modular, like LEGO pieces you can reconfigure and reassemble for your needs! If you’ve ever seen The LEGO Movie then you’ll know just how much this is a superpower! This skill can be developed with practice, but that’s where the Starter Pack helps get you.. started!
“Do you have any guidance on the order of the Starter Pack steps in navigating the unknown unknowns?”
This is such a difficult question, and yet so important to be exploring such confusing areas! We are currently working with Wiley on publishing “Plantation Sustainability for DUMMIES” that will present solutions in navigating four common scenarios. We provide 25 simple steps in each scenario to show you how to best navigate unknown unknowns with agility and flexibility! To stay updated with the latest on “Plantation Sustainability for DUMMIES”, sign up to our newsletter at https://newsletter.wokeness.life.
“Will the Starter Pack help me work with my executives and board members on the connection between our business model, child labour and biodiversity loss?”
The short answer is — to some extent, yes, but in reality, no. You’ll have to wait for “Plantation Sustainability for DUMMIES” to find out (;
At this point we can’t share too much more unfortunately!
“Can I get a discount?”
We totally understand that every little helps in our challenging economic circumstances.
The Starter Pack is available for FREE with a Global North Plus ticket to “Intro to Decolonial Sustainability”!
You might be happy to know that a 50% discount is also available to subscribers of to our “Moving At The Speed of Trust” Learning Journey, which is a monthly subscription with a minimum of 12 months.
We hope this helps you manage your finances in the way that you need! Self care is of utmost importance! We all need down time every once in a while to be able to restore and rejuvenate in order to come back to the hard work of saving the world.
We hope we have satisfactorily answered your questions!
We are very much looking forward to hearing your thoughts as a regular supporter of our work as we continue to develop useful products supporting sustainability professionals in Plantation Sustainability.
In compassionate community,
Samantha Suppiah
wokeness.life
Plantation Sustainability Specialists, Inc.
