Given the dynamic social, economic and political landscape in which we operate, active stakeholder engagement has always been a key part of APRIL’s business approach.

Consequently, APRIL has been reaching out to and working with a wide range of stakeholders to share information, gather feedback and to work together on important programmes that inform our approach to achieving outcomes that deliver both sustainability and development.

APRIL operates in a highly regulated industry that attracts interest and scrutiny from many different stakeholders. Our internal structure ensures multiple external touch points for the organisation including through our Sustainability team, our customer teams, our external affairs function, our community liaison teams, our R&D and scientific teams and our finance team.

These teams undertake regular and proactive contact with key stakeholders and gather information and perspectives on our business and operations. It is important that our engagement process provides us with a clear insight to the range of views about APRIL at any given time.

The collaborative initiatives that have come from our stakeholder engagement efforts have led to a number of practical solutions.

APRIL’s stakeholder engagement systems play an important role in improving our communications, obtaining support for our projects and understanding concerns about our practices.

Stakeholder Engagement Approach

APRIL has in place:

1. A Stakeholder Engagement Strategy and Plan designed to guide engagement activities;
2. Communications protocols and procedures to support the Stakeholder Engagement Plan; and
3. Notification and grievance channels to enable stakeholders to communicate their perspectives, expectations and recommendations to APRIL’s decision makers

APRIL’s stakeholders fall into three broad categories:

1. Those that have an interest in or are directly affected by the economic, social and environmental impacts and/or benefits of APRIL.
2. Those whose views and perspectives on our business are influential in shaping perceptions of the company’s reputation and operating environment;
3. Third parties who through collaboration, knowledge sharing, expertise or other inputs directly contribute to the balance APRIL achieves in effectively shaping its triple bottom line of people, planet and profit.

During 2011-2012, stakeholder engagement included extensive interaction with representatives of each of these groups.

Notable areas of interaction over 2011-2012 were with:

• Local communities in Riau Province and on the Kampar Peninsula in proximity to our concession and mill areas
• The scientific community including independent researchers from organisations such as IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute and Hokkaido University
• Indonesian government-appointed Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) teams

In 2011-2012, APRIL further systemised its resources and mechanisms for the gathering of perspectives from a wide range of stakeholders relevant to our business and for transparent communication of APRIL’s practices and plans.

These efforts included:

• Community surveys, the results of which form an important input to our community engagement, land use management and community development activities.
• Stakeholder workshops to gain a detailed understanding of stakeholder concerns.
• Site visits to our operations by government officials, international interest groups, scientific bodies, educational institutions and NGOs.
• Participation in international bodies and forums including the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, United Nations Conferences on Climate Change and active membership of forestry and pulp and paper industry bodies domestically in Indonesia and internationally

Our stakeholder engagement processes indicate that the following areas are of significant ongoing interest to our key stakeholder groups:

• A desire to see APRIL conclude its plantation establishment program as soon as possible.
• The company’s systems for responsible management of its ongoing utilisation of mixed hardwood feedstock sourced from third parties for its mill operations.
• A desire to see APRIL improve relationships and engagement with prominent international NGO’s.
• A need to better explain APRIL’s community level engagement and dispute mitigation or resolution processes.
• Alignment and compliance with APRIL’s core conservation and sustainability commitments by all APRIL fibre supply partners.
• Impact of APRIL’s operations on carbon emissions, including from peatlands.

APRIL is working actively to increase stakeholder confidence in the company’s positions in each of these areas, via disclosures in this Sustainability Report, and through channels such as a new blog site: APRIL Dialog (www.aprildialog.com).

We encourage all stakeholders who have concerns to raise them with the company through the channels accessible via our company website: www.aprilasia.com

Local Communities – Key to our operating environment

In Indonesia, a stable and productive business environment can only be achieved through close engagement with local communities and diligent, patient work to share information and resolve disputes. We actively seek open dialogue with those who are interested in our business.

Prioritising local community engagement involves deployment of an extensive field force of community development officers who are in everyday contact with local communities. Our most senior executives meet periodically with local community leaders.

Community engagement is also conducted through formal surveys, village level public meetings and third party organised public forums and hearings to understand and address the expectations held by communities.

Typical community engagement includes:

• Public consultations to present and receive feedback on our land management and community development plans.
• Renegotiations of previously concluded arrangements for community livelihood plantations
• Local business forums with SMEs and family-run businesses

Achieving universal or even consensus positions around key issues is often difficult, time-consuming and resource-intensive and frequently involves reaching a compromise that factors in diverse views within and across communities while taking account of the company’s right to operate.

APRIL takes a consultative and dialogue based approach to community engagement. We frequently work with third parties to achieve dispute resolution and APRIL respects and adapts to the outworkings of those processes.

Meranti Estate MRV

Our community engagement activities and delivery of commitments is frequently monitored by independent third parties. For example, at our forestry concession at the Meranti estate, a government Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) team has been monitoring and reporting on our activities, including community and environmental commitments, since 2009.

This Monitoring, Reporting and Verification process is described at section 4.9 of this Report.

Pulau Padang

APRIL’s approach is exemplified by steps taken over the reporting period on the island of Pulau Padang. A detailed case study of processes used to resolve Pulau Padang community concerns is set out in section 4.8 of this Report.

There, during the reporting period, a minority of the community protested against licenses granted to APRIL by the Indonesian Government. The majority of local communities have continuously supported APRIL’s presence and the development opportunities the company brings, and have signed community development agreements with APRIL.

APRIL complied fully with a request by the Ministry of Forestry at the start of 2012 that we halt operations while an independent, multi-stakeholder panel comprising government officials, NGOs and scientists undertook a review of APRIL’s proposed land management uses, conservation commitments, plantation establishment plans and community development commitments.

After an exhaustive process, the independent panel’s input was adopted by APRIL including voluntary re-delineation of some concession boundaries, a reduction in plantable area, affirmation of the creation of conservation forest areas and confirmation of community development initiatives including livelihood farming, education spending and upgrading of healthcare facilities.