Land conflicts and the displacement of communities have long been consequences of APP’s operations and expansion. Some of these conflicts have been managed with brutal violence, such as the deliberate destruction by police of an estimated 300 homes in the Sumatran village of Suluk Bongkal. This 2008 raid also claimed the lives of two children. In 2021, the village was once again targeted by security forces. Thirty villagers were violently removed from land that was grabbed for a eucalyptus plantation.

In February 2013, after widespread public criticism of the company, community opposition and pressure from customers and investors, APP released a Forest Conservation Policy. The policy set out how APP intended to remedy its legacy of destruction and conflict by establishing a full inventory of its many community disputes, reforming its practices and developing action plans. An independent Rainforest Alliance evaluation of these policies followed in February 2015, which concluded that APP had only made “moderate” progress towards these goals.

The 2019 “Conflict Plantations” report by a coalition of Indonesian organisations and the Environmental Paper Network found APP to be involved in hundreds of conflicts with communities across Sumatra and Kalimantan. In just five Indonesian provinces (Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra and both West and East Kalimantan), at least 107 villages or communities were in active conflict with APP affiliates or its suppliers. These conflicts included disputes about customary lands, livelihoods, subsistence crops, evictions, compensation and the lack of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) for the development of pulp plantations. Furthermore, 544 villages were identified as sites of potential conflict, representing more than 2.5 million hectares of land; this equates to between USD 5.7 and 7.7 billion in social compensation risk.

The Rainforest Alliance received a submission about APP from a coalition of NGOs in 2019 that concluded the company had failed to involve key stakeholders in the identification, analysis and resolution of its social responsibility conflicts.

Child labour was discovered in APP’s supply chain in 2013. The Indonesian authorities discovered eight children aged between 16 and 18 working for Arara Abadi (Sinar Mas Forestry) in Sumatra’s Kerumutan forest.

Environmental activists have faced violence, intimidation and death as a result of APP-related conflicts. In March 2015, a farmer and activist named Indra Kailani was tortured and killed by security personnel in Jambi, Indonesia. These forces were employed by PT. Wirakarya Sakti, an APP-controlled supplier.

In 2020, villagers in Jambi accused the APP affiliate PT. Wirakarya Sakti of spraying herbicide from drones to remove evidence of land cultivation by local communities. Wirakarya Sakti also brought in security staff who shot into the air to intimidate villagers during data collection visits; Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) were used to silence the local community. During the same year, the APP-controlled company PT Arara Abadi silenced a protestor from Indonesia’s Riau province using the courts: A 58-year-old farmer from the Sakai Indigenous tribe named Bongku was imprisoned and fined USD 13,800 (around 70 months' wages) for planting sweet potato on his customary land, which Arara Abadi claimed as its own.

A public health crisis was triggered by fires set in 2015, which was traced back to companies including APP. The resulting smoke and haze affected the entirety of Southeast Asia, with national emergencies spreading from Indonesia to Singapore, Malaysia and beyond. Nineteen people died and an estimated 500,000 cases of respiratory tract infections were reported at the time. It is estimated that the fires led to more than 100,000 premature deaths in the region: A 2015 public health study estimated 91,600 premature deaths from exposure to fine particle pollution in Indonesia, 6,500 in Malaysia and 2,200 in Singapore. The cost of the fires was estimated to be USD 16 billion, equivalent to 1.9% of Indonesia’s gross domestic product.

The mass clearing of peatlands by APP releases large amounts of carbon into earth’s atmosphere. Peatland is the most efficient carbon sink on the planet and therefore critically important for mitigating climate change. In 2017, it was estimated that 50 billion tonnes of carbon are held in Indonesia’s peat bogs. Indonesia’s pulp and paper industry has extensive tree plantations on drained and dried peatlands, including approximately 50% of APP's pulpwood suppliers. Draining and drying peatland causes oxidation and increases flammability, both of which lead to high levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Between August 2018 and June 2020, APP actively cleared 3,500 hectares of Sumatran peatland and dug 53 kilometres of drainage canals. These activities directly breached APP’s own commitments to preserve and restore carbon-rich ecosystems and reduce its emissions.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that, per hectare, a drained peatland growing acacia trees will emit approximately 70 tonnes of CO2 annually. Indonesia’s pulp plantations on peat soil therefore emit more than 80 million tonnes of CO2 annually, of which APP is responsible for 44 million tonnes.

Massive greenhouse gas emissions occurred during Indonesia’s 2015 fire and haze crisis, for which APP was identified as one of the top companies responsible. It was caused by the burning of 2.6 million hectares of plantations, forests and peatlands throughout Sumatra, Kalimantan and Papua. According to the Global Fire Emissions Database, an estimated 1.75 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent was released in just a few months, which is more than Germany's or Japan’s total annual emissions. Daily emissions during the fires’ peak weeks exceeded the daily fossil fuel emissions of the USA’s entire economy.

The 2019 Indonesian forest fires emitted at least 708 million tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This figure is almost double the emissions of the Amazon’s 2019 fire season. Many of those fires emerged in pulpwood plantations and six of the biggest culprits supply APP.

Extensive clearing of natural forests and peatlands have long been hallmarks of APP’s operations. To address this, APP released a Forest Conservation Policy (FCP) in 2013. The policy commitments include engaging with local communities and halting all natural forest destruction in Indonesia, extended to all its suppliers. APP also committed to protecting High Conservation Value (HCV) areas and High Carbon Stock (HCS) forests, as well as to recognising Indigenous and local land rights. The FCP was cautiously welcomed by organisations including Greenpeace, WWF and the Rainforest Action Network, although it was also noted that much of APP’s forest land was already cleared.

Not only has APP failed to stick to the FCP commitments it made in 2013, but the company has intensified its illegal encroachment and intimidation of target villages. In 2018, Greenpeace reported that almost 8,000 hectares of forest and peatland linked through ownership to APP and Sinar Mas Group had been cleared since 2013. In 2019, a group including WWF reported that APP was sourcing wood from deforestation-linked plantation companies such as PT Fajar Surya Swadaya; this East Kalimantan company cleared nearly 20,000 hectares of natural forest between 2013 and 2019. In 2019, APP acknowledged ownership and supply chain linkages with problematic companies previously described as “independent”. A June 2020 Greenpeace report showed evidence of APP and its linked companies clearing 3,500 hectares of peatland between 2018 and 2020. An August 2022 Eyes on the Forest report provided evidence of APP’s PT Arara Abadi subsidiary clearing natural vegetation for acacia seedlings in HCV 1 areas, incorporating Sumatran elephant habitat and a UNESCO reserve.

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) disassociated from APP in 2007 “because of substantial, publicly available information that APP was involved in destructive forestry practices and was thus in violation of the Policy for Association.” APP later expressed its interest in rejoining, but the FSC suspended this process in 2018 due to allegations of unacceptable forest management activities. As of November 2021, APP remained disassociated from the FSC amid concerns regarding deforestation, destruction of HCVs, rights violations and illegal trading.

Financial mismanagement and huge debts are long-standing issues for APP and its subsidiaries. Creditors allege that APP has pursued a variety of tactics to delay and/or avoid repaying its debts: APP traded over USD 1 billion in debts through companies registered in the British Virgin islands; the company failed to announce losses of USD 220 million in two currency swaps that were initially unreported, which forced a reissue of APP’s financial statements; and APP allegedly used employees as bondholders to vote on a debt restructuring decision.

In 2001, APP defaulted on approximately USD 13.9 billion in loans, with some of its creditors only receiving a small fraction of their original investments. APP subsidiary Paper Excellence’s Northern Pulp mill was declared insolvent after petitioning for financial aid in June 2020, therefore avoiding the repayment of loans worth more than USD 85 million to the province of Nova Scotia. Paper Excellence also claimed that Northern Pulp owed it USD 213 million in debt.