This morning, International Paper, the world’s largest paper company, announced twelve new voluntary sustainability goals to be achieved by 2020.  Rather than demonstrating leadership, the company failed to set meaningful goals that will have any significant impact on forests around the world.  Dogwood Alliance and leading environmental organizations expected transparency, a roadmap to success and leadership; these goals fail to achieve those results.

Forest product companies have huge environmental footprints, and their heaviest impacts fall in the world’s forests.  The environmental community and leading Fortune 500 companies have been looking for clear commitments to address these destructive impacts.  Unfortunately, these new goals provide slim guidance as to how the company plans to address these serious concerns.

International Paper is the largest paper company operating in the Southern US, which is the largest paper producing region in the world.  As the leading forest protection organization in the South, Dogwood Alliance has long campaigned to end the company’s destructive practices in the region, which sadly are not addressed in these new goals.

First and foremost, International Paper failed to set any meaningful goals around its fiber sourcing.  Rather than commit specifically to an end to logging of endangered forests and conversion of natural forests and forested wetlands to sterile tree plantations, the company relied on platitudes and rhetoric.

One way the company could have ensured aggressive and continuous improvement on the ground would have been to dramatically increase targets for Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified virgin fiber.  Instead, they set an inconsequential goal of 15% increased certified fiber over the next eight years with no stated preference for FSC or clarity as to the goals for virgin fiber.  This is less than 2% increase per year.  International Paper has recently acquired Temple-Inland through a merger. By certifying Temple-Inlands’s existing recycled product lines alone, International Paper could achieve its meager certification goals with no measurable change on the ground for the forests of the world.

The one glimmer of hope is a stated commitment to addressing supply chain issues by 2013.  If you were looking for any specificity, though, you will not find it in this report.  Our hope is that International Paper will take a more aggressive approach in its next iteration, but until then, it is business-as-usual forest destruction from the world’s largest paper company.

Stay tuned for updates!

Dominion is currently planning to open three new 50 megawatt facilities in Virginia that will burn wood to produce electricity.  Additionally, the company plans to burn wood along with coal at its massive new coal burning power plant in Wise County, Virginia.

Recent scientific studies document that burning whole trees for electricity will increase carbon emissions, accelerate industrial logging, and pose a greater threat to human health than burning coal.  If Dominion truly cares about trees, the company should make a public commitment to only burn wood waste and not whole trees at these facilities.  Instead, Dominion should emphasize only truly renewable energy sources like solar and wind, as well as invest heavily in supporting ratepayer efforts for greater energy conservation and efficiency.

To learn more about the threats to Southern forests from bioenergy, visit here.

An example of a wood pile set to be burned at a utility in the UK

Click here to view the embedded video.

We can’t let KFC shut us out of the May 17th KFC shareholders meeting. We need to be there to represent all your voices on behalf of our Southern forests.

Donate NOW to send forest protectors to the KFC shareholders’ meeting!

Click here for more information on the Sustainability Conference that KFC had Dogwood barred from.

Invitation Revoked and Attendance Fee Refunded for “Fear of Protest”

New York City – North Carolina based forest protection organization, Dogwood Alliance, was denied entry this morning to the Sustainable Operations Summit even though the group had been invited to attend by the conference organizers. It was soon discovered that the refusal of admittance came as a result of a request from Yum!Brands/KFC, whose Chief Sustainability Officer, Roger McClendon, is speaking on a panel at today’s conference.

Michael Owens, VP at CraigMichaels, Inc. and conference organizer, stated in an email to the group, “It has been brought to my attention that you are planning on protesting YUM Brands and Roger McClendon at the Sustainable Operations Summit. While I am all for free speech, and I truly respect what you guys do, I cannot allow you attend the summit.” When pressed in a subsequent phone conversation, he revealed that he was informed of planned protest by Yum! Brands/KFC.

The great irony is that the organization had no plans to protest KFC at the event. They were planning to attend so they could see the company’s Chief Sustainability Officer’s presentation on a panel entitled  “Environmental Strategy as Business Strategy.” Though the group has been attempting to meet with KFC to discuss the impact of its paper packaging on the forests of the Southern US for over two years now, KFC has yet to schedule a meeting with the group, and this would have been the first time they ever had the opportunity to meet Roger face-to-face.

“It seems that KFC’s environmental business strategy is to exclude environmental stakeholders in order to avoid addressing important environmental issues,” stated Andrew Goldberg, Corporate Engagement Director at Dogwood Alliance. “This kind of business strategy may be good for the bottomline but is disastrous for our climate and environment.”

The phantom fear of protest seems to be based on Dogwood Alliance’s campaign, “Kentucky Fried Forests,” which exposes how critical wetland and other important forests in the Southern US are being destroyed to make KFC’s fast food packaging, including the iconic bucket. The group has attempted to engage KFC, asking them to reduce their overall use of packaging, increase the use of recycled paper, and stop buying paper packaging that comes from the worst of the worst practices in the woods.

Dogwood Alliance has a long and successful track record working with some of the largest paper producers and consumers in the US. Through a combination of grassroots pressure and negotiation, Dogwood Alliance has catalyzed change at major companies, including Staples, Office Depot, Georgia Pacific, and McDonalds, and helped shift market demand away from paper products produced at the expense of the long term health of Southern forests in favor of recycled paper and sustainable forestry.

“I hope that KFC and the Sustainable Operations Summit will learn a valuable lesson from this embarrassing situation, and in the future acknowledge the real and urgent need to bring together environmental organizations and large corporations in a dialogue about the impact of their business practices on the environment,” continued Goldberg. “How can you expect to make headway on some of the greatest issues facing our generation if you deny leading critics and a dissenting view a seat at the table?”

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Dogwood Alliance is increasing protection for millions of acres of Southern forests by transforming the way corporations, landowners and communities value them for their climate, wildlife and water benefits. Dogwood Alliance has revolutionized the environmental practices of some of the world’s largest corporations. To support Dogwood Alliance’s call for KFC to adopt sustainable packaging practices send a letter to KFC leadership via www.kentuckyfriedforests.com, for more information on the organization visit www.dogwoodalliance.org.

A March Madness NCAA tournament round at the YUM! Brands Arena (named after KFC’s parent company) proved the perfect venue to call attention to the company’s support of destructive forestry practices. On March 17^th,Dogwood fielded a 7-man parody team, The KFC Forest Destroyers, outside the arena. Our team applied the full court press — giving away beach balls emblazoned with the campaign’s Kentucky Fried Forests logo and basketball trading cards highlighting KFC’s Chief Sustainability Officer Roger McClendon (a former all-American at Cincinnati) to those headed into the arena.

Watch all the highlights from this event in our new video!

In February, Dogwood released its new report, Greening Fast Food Packaging: A Roadmap to Best Practices. This report outlines eight key attributes of environmentally friendly fast food packaging, and provides simple guidance on how to assess environmental impacts in the supply chain.  It offers accolades to leaders in the fast food industry that have undertaken key initiatives that will help move the entire sector forward.  It also includes a realistic, workable action plan to focus corporate sustainability efforts.

“We hope that by boiling down complex issues into a straightforward, stepwise action plan, companies can make progress on their packaging, creating a win-win for our forests and the corporate bottom-line,” said Dogwood’s Campaign Director Scot Quaranda, who co-authored the report. “By following our roadmap and working with experts in key areas associated with the packaging supply chain, more companies can lead rather than lag further behind.”

And finally, the heat continues with our upcoming Day of Action on Tuesday, April 17th. Stay tuned for details in your inbox!

At Dogwood Alliance, we’re expanding our horizons, and Patrick Fitzsimmons is just the person to help! Patrick joined Dogwood Alliance as Development Director on March 20th. After a long career with the Red Cross, including several years as Regional CEO, Patrick was ready to apply his considerable marketing and fundraising skills in a new way.

“I had a great career at the Red Cross, but I was looking for a different kind of experience that would still be meaningful work. Luckily, I found Dogwood,” he says.

“Not only does Patrick come from a background of community organizing on environmental issues, but he has a long track record of successful experience fundraising in the South through his many years at the Red Cross,” says Dogwood Executive Director Danna Smith. “He is a great fit for Dogwood, and we are very excited about being able to tap into his passion, experience and talents to build greater capacity to protect the South’s forests from destructive industrial forestry.”

Fitzsimmons has a great deal of volunteer experience with social justice organizations, and sees his work with Dogwood as a natural extension of that. “There’s a tie between how the environment is degraded and how portions of our population are degraded as well. For example, a great deal of forest destruction occurs near communities of poverty, causing harmful environmental effects. Helping people see their connection to the environment is a big part of social justice.”

What excites Fitzsimmons the most about his new post is the opportunity to bring the message of Dogwood to a wider audience and get more people to support the work of protecting Southern forests. “I spent my career helping to protect people from disaster. Now I get to help protect forests from disaster,” he quips.

Contact Patrick and welcome him at patrick@dogwoodalliance.org.

Spring is in the air, and that means it’s once again time for the annual Green Fest in Decatur, Georgia — hosted by and benefiting Dogwood Alliance. Our Georgia-based volunteer corps, led by Dogwood board members John Beal Lori Leech as well as former board member Jeff Hix of Indoff Green Office Products, work hard each year to put this fantastic event together. As a result, it’s Dogwood’s most successful fundraising and “friend raising” gathering.

Today, Global Justice Ecology Project announced their new report, An Analysis of the State of GE Trees and Advanced Bioenergy, which details the evolution of the issue of GE trees from 2010 through 2012 and the global campaign to prohibit the release of GE trees.

The report reveals government, industry, university and research institution collusion to advance development of GE trees specifically designed for bioenergy production in the US and globally.

It also describes the impacts of a 2010 lawsuit against GE trees [3] brought against the USDA by a coalition of environmental organizations [4] that had a chilling effect on the GE trees industry by scaring off investors. [5]

“Global Justice Ecology Project published this new report to inform the public about the problems with genetically engineered trees and to highlight what is going on to stop them,” said Anne Petermann, Executive Director of Global Justice Ecology Project, and Coordinator of the STOP GE Trees Campaign.  “This exposé reveals government-industry backroom deals that are using the crisis of climate change and the need for renewable energy to stack the deck in favor of the mass-release of millions of GE trees to feed bioenergy production,” Petermann added.

The report critiques a recent USDA announcement regarding forthcoming changes to their regulatory procedures for reviewing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to enable corporations to bring their GE products to market in half the time it used to take–down from three years to 13-16 months. One of the GMO plants that would be included in this rapid review process is ArborGen’s GE eucalyptus tree. [6]

Scot Quaranda, Campaign Director for the North Carolina-based Dogwood Alliance stated, “The USDA can’t possibly review GE eucalyptus trees in 13-16 months. GE eucalyptus trees are non-native, invasive, explosively flammable and deplete ground water.  Developing plantations of them in a region that often suffers from extensive drought would be a disaster.” [7]

“If they rush approval of GE trees, the USDA is risking a huge public backlash and a lengthy legal challenge,” warned Global Justice Ecology Project Board Chair Orin Langelle.

In addition to exposing the rapid, government-supported development of GE trees in the US, the report discusses international strategies used by industry to open markets for GE tree products.  This includes attempts to greenwash GE trees by creating phony sustainability criteria for them.

To download the March 20, 2012 report, go to: Analysis of the Current State of GE Trees and Advanced Bioenergy.

Notes to Editors:

1. http://www.rubicon-nz.com/main.cfm?menu=news&itemid=115

2. BIOTECH: Tree developer postpones IPO

3. Groups Sue Government Over GMO Trees

4. Global Justice Ecology Project, Dogwood Alliance, Sierra Club, Center for Food Safety, International Center for Technology Assessment and Center for Biological Diversity

5. Lawsuit highlights a barrier to biotechnology advancements in the U.S.

6. Monsanto, Dow Gene-Modified Crops to Get Faster U.S. Reviews

7. So-Called Confined field releases of GM Eucalyptus neither confined nor safe