After two years of pressure from Dogwood Alliance and our partners, KFC and its parent company, Yum! Brands, released a new sustainable packaging policy in late October. (Click on Sustainable Sourcing and Waste Recovery Policy and it will pop up)

“We’ve been studying the implications of the policy and talking with the company’s biggest suppliers to ensure that this new policy will drive real change on the ground for our forests,” said Dogwood’s Campaign Director Scot Quaranda. “After much analysis, we are now confident that it will increase the overall use of recycled paper, eliminate controversial sourcing from endangered forests like the Green Swamp in southeastern North Carolina, and give preference to FSC-certified fiber, which will limit the most destructive practices in the woods. It all adds up to a big win for Southern forests!”

Specifically, Yum!’s new policy states that it will not source fiber from:

• Wood harvested in a manner that violates human rights and local or international laws
• Wood harvested in locations that have been identified to have high conservation values
• Wood harvested from forests that have been converted to plantations for non-forest use.

In addition, the company will give preference to suppliers who source wood fiber certified by a third-party (such as FSC) that meets the most rigorous forest management standards.

To celebrate this huge step forward in Dogwood’s work with KFC, one of Dogwood’s talented activists worked with staff to create a new, free video game, Bucket Kickin’ Chicken. Play it here!

But Dogwood isn’t letting up on the pressure just yet. Although Southern forests will be better protected, KFC also sources paper from other companies that are devastating forests in Indonesia and other parts of Asia. “Unfortunately, KFC’s new policy does not include language on deforestation, and global deforestation is the main reason our allies at Greenpeace are standing with the people of Indonesia and calling on the company to stop buying from Asia Pulp and Paper, who is notorious for this practice,” Quaranda explains. “While we applaud KFC’s new policy here in the US, we will continue to support the Greenpeace campaign until KFC’s policy is global. We’re hopeful that our new relationship with the company can help to ultimately green KFC’s packaging worldwide.”