October 12, 2007—Environmental groups ForestEthics and Dogwood Alliance recently released a “report card” on the forest-related paper practices of the five major office supply companies: Staples, Office Depot, Corporate Express, FedEx Kinko’s, and OfficeMax.
Each of the five companies has been engaged in discussions with the two environmental groups, resulting in several new advances: a new environmental policy and increased recycled paper use (Corporate Express), a commitment to sustainable logging (Staples), and the elimination of sourcing from endangered mountain caribou habitat (FedEx Kinko’s).
Dogwood Alliance and ForestEthics have been working to reform the environmental practices of the office supply industry since 2000, with the result of an increased demand for environmentally preferable papers.
The new report updates the progress made by the industry according to five categories: the use of post -consumer recycled content; commitment to sustainable forest management; Endangered Forest protection; establishing chain-of-custody to determine where paper products originate; and prohibiting the conversion of native forests into tree farms or other non-forest land uses.
To read the report, titled “Green Grades: A Report Card on the Paper Practices of the Office Supply Sector”, visit the Forest Ethics Web site.
