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International Paper Takes Corporate Greenwashing to a Whole New Level
Latest website provokes unintentional laughter.
International Paper Takes Corporate Greenwashing to a Whole New Level
Last November Dogwood Alliance unveiled a new page on our website about International Paper (IP) and its destructive ways entitled “Ever Wonder Who’s Behind the Curtain of Forest Destruction?”In what appears to be a calculated effort to deflect our message, this week, IP, the South and world’s largest paper producer, unveiled a new website “Down to Earth” in an effort to convince the world that the consumption and productionof vast amounts of paper is actually good for the planet.Even the name “Down to Earth” is full of irony – what planet is John Faraci, IP’s CEO from anyway?
At a time when the health of the planet and life as we know it hangs in the balance, IP’s latest attempt to cover its destructive practices in a thick layer of green paint is irresponsible and immoral.Will people really be bamboozled by a website produced by the biggest paper manufacturer on the planet touting paper as the holy grail that’s going to save our forests, protect us from climate change and preserve water quality and biodiversity?Let’s hope not. I believe as a culture, we are learning to recognize corporate doublespeak when we see it and IP’s new website is one of the most obvious examples out there. It’s really quite sad that IP would rather throw around half-truths than do something meaningful to protect our forests for future generations.
IP’s mass production of paper is destroying forests, water quality and wildlife habitat and releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.And while other companies are taking responsibility and changing business practices, IP continues to play a game of smoke and mirrors, misleading the public, its customers and even its shareholders.
Collectively, we will unravel IP’s web of deceit and its fake green house of cards will fall.For, let’s be clear – the reason IP produced this website is because of the effectiveness of our work educating the public, corporate paper consumers and shareholders about how IP is leading the destruction of our forests.We’ve got IP on the run and its time to push even harder to win them over.Our children are counting on us.
Go Danna Go! written by Melissa Bromley,
March 08, 2010
Thank you Danna and the rest of the Dogwood Team for all of your hard work.
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Mr. written by Realist,
March 16, 2010
Please tell me what you suggest as an alternative to paper? Shall we communicate with Kindles? And through them into a landfill when the new model comes out two years later? Trees are a renewable resource and are being replenished thanks largely to there being a market for trees to make paper. What planet do YOU live on? And what do you use for toilet paper there?
Get Your Facts Straight written by Watch DOG,
March 17, 2010
4,000 acres of natural woodlands are being lost PER DAY in the U.S. to development. Why? Private landowners, who own nearly 60% of America's woodlands, are being forced to sell land at premium prices because people like you have so distorted the facts that timber prices won't pay the property taxes, estate taxes, FSC (or other "uncredible") auditing costs, etc. Hear what a REAL landowner with 2,000 acres in Maine has to say about where the forests are headed on Earth and Sky. http://earthsky.org/agricultur...-much-more Go bone up on your stats and realize that mountaintop removal mining has already deforested nearly 7% of the Appalachian mountains -- to burn coal for your electronic devices. I notice in the picture you're so proud to display that both individuals are holding PAPER! A fanatics approach to a subject in a well-intetioned effort to demonize one company is, in the end, unproductive. Perhaps it's time to stop ranting and raving and go get caught up on the current state of affairs. While International Paper has a history that certainly can be criticized, they no longer OWN forestland. Private landowners, including timber investment management organizations (TIMOs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) are in charge of U.S. forests -- 11 million different owners. Fragmentation occurs when inheritances are passed out -- and when a developer will pay six or seven times per acre what a well-managed woodland is worth annually from timber, guess who gets the land? Your zealous approach to important issues is dangerous, ill-informed and could do as much to deforest our land as IP ever did. In the end, you will be partially responsible for the very acts that you fear.
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Executive Director written by Danna Smith,
March 24, 2010
OK How many times do we need to say it -- we are not advocating for zero use of paper. Paper can be made with less destructive practices. We can and should use less and we should recycle more.
Yes, we agree that mountain top removal and development also destroy forests. But that doesn't negate the devastating impact that unsustainable logging practices have on sensitive ecosystems, important ecological functions, biodiversity or local communities.
And you can thank companies like IP for the depressed markets for pulpwood. I happen to read industry trade publications fairly often, and the real cause of depressed prices has nothing at all to do with Dogwood Alliance. Over the past decade, companies like IP expanded mill capacity way beyond market demand. That combined with increases in supply due to more and more plantation wood coming on line and a severly weakened global economy sent wood prices plummeting.
And you can also thank IP for the loss of forests to development! While the company continuously points the finger conveniently at development as the biggest threat to forests, it has been responsible for developing hundreds of thousands of acres of forests in the South over the past several decades.
We agree that currently landowners don't receive adequate value for maintaining forests. We believe the solution is to increase the value of keeping ecosystems in tact. See our new Carbon Canopy initiative for more information.
You seem to suggest that we should be paying landowners a higher price to log as a strategy for protecting forests. That's just simply ludicrous.
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Landowner under eminant domain condemnation. written by M. G. Shelton,
April 04, 2010
Does your organization ever take a look at the destruction of forests, habitats, wetlands perpetrated by the Department of Transportation? My observation is that they can block drainage, pave over wetlands, fill in wetlands, cut vast acreage of forests with little or no oversite. Minimizing destruction to habitats doesn't have to be considered.
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Ludicrous is.... written by Watch DOG,
April 10, 2010
I fully meant to leave off with this discussion, but since you're ranting is being funded by well-intentioned donors, for them I say that: “Ludicrous” is not moving on from whatever personal vendetta you have against IP who NO LONGER OWNS FOREST. It's spending money donated in good faith toward the past and not addressing the current state of affairs, which is that 11 million private individuals or corporations OTHER than IP now own nearly 60% of U.S. forestland.
“Ludicrous” is presenting “logging” as an activity in and of itself without acknowledgement, understanding nor support of how private landowners who are in the business of supplying timber are very savvy “farmers” who don’t wholesale “log” but choose portions of their land to “farm” as trees for timber and do a great job of keeping biodiversity because that’s what they want to pass down to their grandchildren.
“Ludicrous” is the idea that your well-funded pilot program, “Carbon Canopy” is going to stem the tide of “cut and run” harvesting and subsequent sale to developers (4,000 acres a DAY) of our precious woodlands any time soon. By your own admission, here’s how landowners can financially benefit from it TODAY: What’s the real financial benefit to the landowner?We will have a better sense of the true benefits to landowners upon completion of the pilot project. However, we are confident that landowners who are interested in selling in the carbon market will be able to earn a higher price per ton of carbon if they meet rigorous standards such as those we will be using in the Carbon Canopy pilot project.
You are darn straight we should be paying landowners a higher price to “log” as a strategy for protecting forests, because currently that’s the only way they have to pay property taxes etc. other than selling to developers. Forget IP and forests. It’s over. IP no longer owns forests. Period. That's yesterdays' problem. And tomorrow, maybe, if your program works, and landowners meet your “rigorous standards” (translation more costs) they may get money from carbon credits.
Why not put a price tag on the air and water woodlands provide for literally millions of people? Every time you take a drink of clear, potable water, why not pay a landowner a dime? Every time you breathe in fresh air, you pay a nickel? How about we all put our money where our mouths and noses are?
Why pay landowners more for logging? Because profitable “logging” is followed by planting more trees and leads to better forest management. Currently, becoming certified by your “preferred” , or any other standard, costs real money, and maintaining those standards costs more money. (And why is it cost prohibitive for many landowners to get certified? Are the certifiers really in it because they CARE?)
“Logging” only becomes an activity in and of itself when good forest management isn’t profitable. When people can’t make money GROWING trees, they simply LOG them, making your self-fulfilling prophecy true. You spend your donors’ money to help create the circumstances that make you right!
Family landowners consider owning land their primary motivation, not timber management. (USDA) They want a strong ecosystem because they like to hunt and they like to see a forest. They don’t want to cut and run, sell to developers or create nothing but plantations. They want to take manage a portion of their land specifically for forest products in a sustainable manner, because frankly, sustainable management is also smart economics.As for TIMOs and REITs, their only concern is bottom line, and if they can get $30,000 an acre selling to a developer NOW instead of $3,000-$5,000 per year over many years for timber management, developers win.
Yesterday is gone. For the first time in 100 years (USDA) U.S. forests are disappearing “at an alarming rate.” Do we continue to bash IP for what they may possibly have done in the past, wait for tomorrow when and if your program or some other politically motivated plan proves successful, or deal with today’s problems in the best way possible to protect the precious woodlands that are being cemented over for housing, roads and shopping? I vote for living in the moment and paying landowners, not for logging, but for forest management, by making forest management profitable TODAY and not somewhere in the future on a “maybe- maybe not” pilot program.Want better forest facts? Read them at http://www.printgrowstrees.org
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Executive Director written by Danna Smith,
April 12, 2010
This is my last post on this. You are absolutely right that IP no longer owns much land in the South. However, holding IP accountable for the supply chain impacts of its business operations is far from "yesterday's issue". The fact that IP doesn't own land is irrelevant in the 21st Century as more and more consumers (corporate and individual) want to know where their products come from and what the impacts are. Whether its customers wanting to ensure that the clothing they buy isn't coming from sweat shops employing kids in China, that their energy isn;t coming from mountaintop removal or their paper coming from destroyed forests, corporations around the world are now being held accountable for the environmental and human rights impacts of their business decisions. Not owning the factory or the coal fields or the forest is no longer any justification for serious negative impacts.
IP is by far the largest paper producer in the Southern US and world. As such a huge economic driver in the region, it has a responsibility to ensure that the profits it makes do not come at the expense of our environment and local communities. Other paper companies such as AbitibiBowater and Domtar are doing their part to improve forestry practices on private lands where they source fiber for their products and IP can do the same.
And I'll say it again. Landowners should get paid more to log less and protect their forests. We're not there yet, but it is the wave of the future. The thought that we need to financially support destructive logging practices to save our forests is what's really old school.
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