Further Reading.
February 12th, 2006 by Mollie
This post is a follow-up to Who is telling the truth? .
I did a little more research regarding the Greenpeace/Kimberly-Clark situation and found some very interesting and helpful information. It turns out that Greenpeace is the one being honest about the information it is sharing with the public. Phew. I was worried there for a second. It also turns out that I was not the only one that was fooled by Kimberly-Clark’s environmental claims and that the company has gotten so good at deceiving the public that Greenpeace and Kleercut (developed by Greenpeace to specifically deal with the Kimberly-Clark situation) have taken each one of Kimberly-Clark’s claims and used facts to expose the truth behind the claims. I will share a few of them with you.
Let’s begin by taking a look at one of Kimberly-Clark’s third party forest certifiers, the Sustainable Forest Initiative.
The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) is a deceptive marketing scheme developed by the American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA)—the most powerful timber trade association in the world—for its member companies, including the largest loggers in the United States and Canada and the largest wholesale distributors of global wood products. Members of the governing board of the SFI, the Sustainable Forestry Board, have been appointed by the AF&PA. And 82% of SFI’s funding comes from AF&PA members.
Click Here for more information on SFI.
As far as Kimberly-Clark’s claim that it supports the protection of old growth forests? Well, unfortunately, while they may make that claim, there is a lot of evidence which proves that they are doing a lot of harm to the environment, including harm to old growth forests. Kimberly-Clark buys from Neenah Paper and West Fraser Timber both of which get their pulp by clearcutting old growth forests. More specifically, Kimberly-Clark is playing a big part in the destruction of the Boreal Forest. The reason the Boreal Forest is so important and needs to be saved is because it accounts for 25% of the world’s remaining old growth forests and is “home to hundreds of wide-ranging wildlife species, including moose, caribou, lynx, bear and wolves. Eagles, hawks, owls, 30 per cent of North America’s songbirds and 40 per cent of its waterfowl nest in the forests and wetlands. The Boreal is a diverse and awe-inspiring landscape of granite outcrops, lakes, rivers, and marshes interspersed with pine, spruce, fir and poplar forests.”
The pulp and paper and lumber industries in Canada are very closely entwined and interdependent. They rely on each other so much that one could not survive financially without the other. In fact, the pulp and paper industry, which includes Kimberly-Clark, drives much of the clearcutting that takes place in the Boreal forest. Without this growing demand, clearcutting would not be expanding into the northern reaches of the Boreal forest. Kimberly-Clark is also incorrect in stating that much of their fiber is deriverd from saw mill residue or waste. In fact, according to the Kenogami Forest Management Plan – the official government-approved plan written by Neenah Paper Inc. that outlines logging operations in Ontario’s Kenogami Forest – 48% of the wood used in the Neenah Paper’s pulp mill comes directly from the Boreal forest. This wood is not sawed first at a local saw mill nor delivered in the form of sawdust or chips. Neenah Paper is a currently a major supplier of pulp to Kimberly-Clark and was owned by Kimberly-Clark up until November 2004. The Kenogami Forest is a Boreal forest.
Finally, there is a reason that most people refer to a facial tissue as a Kleenex. It is because Kimberly-Clark, whose disposable tissue products are Kleenex, Scott, Viva, and Cottonelle (other Kimberly-Clark products are Kotex, Depends, and Huggies) is the largest developer of tissue products worldwide. However,
In North America, less than 19% of the pulp that Kimberly-Clark uses for its disposable tissue products comes from recycled sources. The rest comes directly from forests like Canada’s Boreal. Most of the recycled fibre that Kimberly-Clark does use goes directly into tissue products sold to institutions like theatre chains, hotels and sports stadiums. Most of the consumer products sold in local grocery stores, including Kleenex brand products, contain no recycled fiber whatsoever. Despite the fact that it has the capacity to make a much higher percentage of its products from post-consumer recycled fiber, Kimberly-Clark chose, in 2004, to use 3 million metric tonnes (3.3 million tons) of virgin fiber to produce its tissue paper products globally.
For a detailed list of alternatives to Kimberly-Clark products click here or go to Greenpeace’s Shoppers Guide.