Kimberly-Clark commits to use 40% of FSC certified fibre by the end of 2011
-----------------
The company says by the end of 2011 it will ensure that 40 per cent of its North American tissue fibre is either recycled or certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
Kimberly-Clark will also stop buying fibre from Canada's boreal forests that is not certified by the council by the end of 2011.
The truce comes after years of protests by Greenpeace against the Texas-based company in which activists blockaded factories and staged an aggressive Internet campaign.
Last month, Kimberly-Clark reported net sales in the second quarter of 2009 fell 5.6 per cent to US$4.7 billion from about US$5 billion during the same quarter a year before due to a weak foreign currency exchange rate.
Copyright:Issued by: Metro News
Author:
e-Mail:
Issue date: August 5, 2009
Link to Article: Origin of text
Another story by Dead Tree Edition:
Saturday, August 8, 2009: A journalist friend notes that an article headlined "Dog Bites Man" isn't much of a story, but that "Man Bites Dog" is big news.
Here's a true man-bites-dog story: A paper company is accusing Greenpeace of selling out by setting its standards for eco-friendly paper too low and for backing off on its efforts to protect Canada's boreal forest. This is the same Greenpeace that has used various tactics to embarrass such companies as Victoria's Secret, Sears, and AbitibiBowater over logging in the boreal.
Marcal Paper's criticism of Greenpeace comes barely a week after members of the environmental group were arrested while blocking the entrance to Quebec's Natural Resources Department to protest boreal logging.
The New Jersey-based maker of 100%-recycled toilet paper was commenting on Greenpeace's announcement Thursday that it was ending its "Kleercut" campaign against Kimberly-Clark. Greenpeace agreed to a truce because the maker of Kleenex promised that, by the end of 2011, at least 40% of its tissue fiber will be either recycled or FSC certified.
"Since when is 40 percent a passing grade?" Tim Spring, Marcal CEO, said in a statement issued yesterday. "While I understand the negotiating process, Greenpeace needs to rethink these standards. There is no excuse to make paper from anything but 100 percent recycled fiber, especially when you consider that paper takes up a quarter of our landfill space today."
"It is unnecessary to kill even a single additional tree to manufacture toilet paper, facial tissue, napkins or paper towels," Marcal's statement says.
So what happens next? Here's a hint from Greenpeace's Web site: "Did you know that K-C competitors Georgia Pacific and Procter & Gamble currently have policies that fail to protect the world’s forests?"
---------------
