Last month, the non-profit environmental organizations ForestEthics and Dogwood Alliance released their annual report card rating companies in the multi-billion office sector on the sustainability of their business practices. Two Northwest companies, Costco and Amazon, got the lowest grades.
“Companies like FedEx Office, Unisource, Office Depot, United Stationers, and Target have used their purchasing power to stop the purchase of paper from some of the world’s most destructive companies,” said Daniel Hall of ForestEthics. “Unfortunately, companies like Xpedx and Amazon.com continue to fund forest destruction.”According to Green Grades 2009, FedEx Office got an A-, the highest grade in the report, because “the company hasn’t hesitated to avoid paper from caribou habitat, Indonesian forests, and other Endangered Forests, and has just made a major shift away from tree plantations in the US South.”
At the other end of the report card were Northwest companies Costco and Amazon.com. Both of these companies, the report said, had no problem buying and selling paper from endangered forests. While the companies Target and Wal-Mart completed the Report Card surveys on their paper sourcing, both Costco and Amazon did not.
The Report card also addressed the disparity between two major forestry certification bodies, the Forestry Stewardship Council and the timber-industry created Sustainable Forestry Initiative. When companies buy timber certified by the SFI, it undercuts the credibility of green claims by legitimate shifts in sustainable practices.
Andrew Goldberg of Dogwood Alliance said, “A number of companies in this report card talk a green game while supporting destructive paper companies like International Paper and hiding behind less than credible certifications like those of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.”
Check out the ForestEthics website for more information, and to see how the other companies measured up.
