In 2024, Jesus College entered into a long term partnership with Suzano (a huge multinational paper and wood pulp corporation based in Brazil), accepting an initial donation of £10,000,0001 to fund “education and research into areas including the conservation of biodiversity, enhancing business sustainability and the restoration of natural habitats“.
The reality faced by people living in the Amazon, where Suzano operates, is starkly different. For years, Suzano has been planting monoculture eucalyptus on rainforest land illegally grabbed from now displaced indigenous people. Local groups report frequent instances of intimidation, physical violence and dumping of poison on land used by locals for agriculture. Suzano’s partnership with Jesus College in the name of ‘sustainability’ gives it a chance to wash its hands of these sins and claim that it is on the side of people and planet.
MST (the Landless Workers Movement) has been organising direct action against Suzano and other corporations and providing community support for years, and tells us that there has been no change to Suzano’s ‘business as usual’ destructive practices in recent years.
Join ORCA in demanding that Jesus College and the University of Cambridge recognise the immense harm Suzano continues to cause in the name of profit, and must abandon their greenwashing partnership in solidarity with Amazonian people and the planet.
Blood money in the name of ‘sustainability’ is still blood money, so ask yourself: “What would Jesus do??”
See our action
See our press release.
Our leaflet
- The £10 million are shared with Cambridge University: Jesus College got £7.85 million out of this deal. ↩︎