School has just begun and we are already handing out grades. Yesterday Dogwood Alliance and ForestEthics, released the 2009 Green Grades Office Supply Report Card, an important vehicle for holding the office supply industry accountable for their impacts on our forests. We are pleased to report strong progress from old-school retailers, with FedEx Office, Staples and Office Depot making major moves away from the inadequate industry driven SFI forest certification scheme to paper sourced from responsibly managed forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
Click here to see who’s the apple of our eye and who gets detention…
Also notable this year is the addition of paper distributors Unisource and United Stationers and other big box retailers including Walmart and Target that sell a lot of office paper bringing the total number of companies surveyed up to a cool dozen. We have also included the new categories of forest protection leadership and climate change in our analysis. Overall we are pleased to report strong progress among these additional companies as well. Both Unisource and United Stationers have announced new environmental policies and Target and Walmart are beginning to address paper issues as well.
Through measuring each company’s environmental performance on important issues like protection of endangered forests, commitment to FSC certified and recycled papers and the conversion of natural forests to , our Green Grades report card has become a powerful framework for pushing the big paper sellers to compete with each other to improve their own practices. For instance Office Depot has moved their highest volume “green” office paper from 10 to 30% to achieve a leadership position with this offering. Others have dropped contracts with basedo ntheir long history of forest destruction in our region.
Your support has been critical to make sure paper companies are held accountable for their forest management practices. Thanks for helping us start the greening of the office supply sector