Today, Dogwood Alliance and ForestEthics, released the 2010 Green Grades Office Supply Report Card, an important vehicle for educating consumers and large purchasers of office supply products about the big paper sellers’ environmental practices. In our 4th year our work continues to payoff and we are pleased to report strong progress from the traditional office supply retailers. FedEx Office, Staples and Office Depot are all making major moves away from the inadequate industry driven SFI forest certification scheme to paper sourced from responsibly managed forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Even better, we are also seeing these retailers put their money where their paper comes from by investing in projects that are working to improve forest management practices on the ground here in the South. This leadership by Staples and Office Depot was hard to imagine just 4 or 5 years ago but is quickly becoming the standard by which other large paper costumers will be judged.
We have also seen progress from the paper distributors including Unisource, PaperLinx and United Stationers who are all shifting their business away from irresponsible operators here in the South. Even some of the big box retailers are making progress. In a nutshell, our work has leveraged millions of dollars of corporate spending towards a more green future in our forests.
Your support has been critical in making sure paper companies are held accountable for their forest management practices. Thanks for helping us keep pushing in the greening of the office supply sector.
As always, your feedback is welcome on our programs. Have a great late summer!
For the forests,
Andrew Goldberg
Director of Corporate Engagement