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The impact of environmental work isn’t always easy to quantify. As you consider your year-end gifts, how do you know your donations are really making a difference? Here’s a simple breakdown of Dogwood Alliance’s 5 most notable accomplishments for 2009 — and the 5 we’ve set our sights on for 2010. We think you’ll agree that your gift to Dogwood Alliance truly pays off for Southern forests!
2009
• Our Packaging Campaign secured commitments to create more sustainable packaging practices — from FSC and recycled sourcing to reducing overall paper content — from major corporations like Sony Home Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Johnson & Johnson, and we reviewed a draft green packaging policy from GlaxoSmithKline.
• McDonalds, one of the top fast food giants, began working with Dogwood to develop their own commitment to sustainable packaging practices, with an eye toward emerging as the industry leader in 2010.
• Working with our former-adversary-turned-ally, Staples, we launched the Carbon Canopy project, a “sequester where you source” program that will help forest landowners and land managers earn money for carbon sequestration through more responsible forest management, and help Fortune 500 customers adopt more sustainable practices in the process.
• We released our third Green Grades report card for the office supply sector, evaluating the practices of twelve major players in the retail, distribution and wholesale paper sectors on their use of environmentally responsible practices.
• We officially named Danna Smith, co-founder and longtime Dogwood leader, as our Executive Director, leveraging her 13 years of experience working with Dogwood to protect Southern forests.
2010
• As part of our “No Free Refills” fast-food packaging campaign, we’ll launch our next large-scale public awareness push to highlight the impact that one of the biggest giants in the fast food industry has on the South’s coastal forests. Watch for that in late winter.
• Inspired by our awesome 8-year-old friend Cole Rasenburger, we’ll launch a youth organizing program to help educate the South’s youngest activists.
• We will continue to put pressure on International Paper as the biggest obstacle to broad-sweeping progress in the paper industry. (See story below.)
• The Carbon Canopy project will launch its first pilot project to help Southern forest landowners expand forest conservation on their land and, over time, remove carbon from the atmosphere.
• We’ll begin to attack the next new threat to Southern forests: “bio-energy,” the burning of trees for energy. We’ll make sure that awareness grows about the dangers to our forests and communities from this industry, which threatens to double the amount of logging and pine plantations in the South.
Because of the work of Dogwood Alliance, more of the South’s forestlands are protected and managed responsibly. As a result, these forests continue to help support the bio-diversity, clean air, and pure water that are essential to our region’s communities. Your support is essential to Dogwood Alliance. Thanks for all you do to protect Southern forests!
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