ALLCOT’s letter to Jeffrey Kitingan about Sabah’s Nature Conservation Agreement is dated 2 December 2021 and “No acceptance or posterior agreement was ever made”

Further clarification from ALLCOT: “There is no real engagement nor a legally binding agreement between the parties”.

Letter, dated 2 December 2021, from ALLCOT to Jeffrey Kitingan, “expressing its interest in exploring the possibility of implementing a carbon project”

On 11 August 2023, Sabah Way Forward posted an interview with Jeffrey Kitingan, Sabah’s Deputy Chief Minister, on Facebook. The interview involved a series of questions about Sabah’s Nature Conservation Agreement, a carbon project that would hand over control of two million hectares of forest to Hoch Standard, a company incorporated in Singapore.

Hoch Standard would generate and sell carbon credits from Sabah’s forest. But the company has no record of either carbon trading, or managing forest carbon projects. Further muddying the water is the fact that Hoch Standard is owned by a company called Lionsgate Ltd, which is incorporated in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands.

During the interview with Sabah Way Forward, Kitingan claimed that “we are engaged with ALLCOT Group”, a Swiss carbon trading consulting firm.

When I asked ALLCOT whether this was true, the Communication Department at ALLCOT replied, “No, it is not true.”

During the interview with Kitingan, this letter was shown on screen while Kitingan was speaking together with a letter from Sustainable Investment Management. I’ve also written to SIM to ask about their involvement in Sabah’s Nature Conservation Agreement.

After I posted ALLCOT’s response to my questions, ALLCOT’s Communication Department sent the following additional reply:

About your article and the ‘engagement’ of ALLCOT with Sabah, it is essential to add that there is no real engagement nor a legally binding agreement between the parties. ALLCOT sent a letter expressing its interest in exploring the possibility of implementing a carbon project. However, no acceptance or posterior agreement was ever made. ALLCOT doesn’t have any information or knowledge of the current state of the project or have any communication, business or agreements with any public or private party concerning the above-mentioned project.

ALLCOT’s Communications Department also sent a copy of the letter that ALLCOT sent to Jeffrey Kitingan.

Here is the letter - which clearly reveals that there is no “engagement” between the Nature Conservation Agreement and ALLCOT, contrary to Kitingan’s claims. In fact, it’s astonishing that 21 months later, Kitingan is using this letter to claim “engagement” with ALLCOT:

Dear Dr Jeffrey Kitingan,

Congratulations to you for your leadership in Sabah to protect the tropical rainforest of Sabah, Malaysia. Your leadership has resulted in the signing of a Nature Conservation Agreement (NCA) between the Sabah Government and Hoch Standard Pte Ltd (HS) on 28ᵗʰ October 2021 which incorporates the conservation and preservation of 2 million hectares of tropical rainforest for at least 100 years.

Alexis Leroy, CEO, and Mercedes Garciá, COO of ALCOT GROUP, wish to express our serious interest to work with the government of Sabah through Hoch Standard Pte Ltd (HS) to ensure that the NCA will be implemented with best practices protocols, full transparency, integrity and corporate governance consistent with the 17 UN SDGs.

For your information, ALLCOT GROUP, founded in 2009, is a project developer that provides knowledge, experience and management to greenhouse gas emission reduction (GHG) initiatives to actively combat the climate crisis under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement and align with the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We have a multidisciplinary technical team with extensive experience and technical knowledge that have done possible a pipeline of more than 60 project activities around the world, and ultimately focused on REDD+ activities under VCS standard in Senegal, Mexico and recently starting in Indonesia.

Currently we are implementing a REDD+ project in Colombia, a very singular project in 500,000 ha involving more than 1.800 land ownders which is going to remove more than 200.000 tCO2 from the atmosphere every year.

We look forward to travel to Sabah to meet you and discuss with how we can work together for the betterment of mankind globally.

With best wishes,