Greenpeace Sticks It To Toshiba: Company Has No Paper Policy

Update: Toshiba pulled the plug on its campaign the day after this article appeared. See 9 Lessons from Toshiba's No-Print Day Debacle for the full story.
 
Toshiba's misleading "No-Print Day" campaign may be an attempt to distract us from the company's dismal environmental record.

Greenpeace ranks the company tied for #13, out of 15 major manufacturers, in the latest edition of its annual Guide to Greener Electronics.

Toshiba's score of only 2.8 on a scale of 10 is actually an improvement over the previous year, when Greenpeace penalized it for backtracking on a previous commitment to remove certain hazardous materials from its PCs -- and lying about it.

But here's the kicker: The Greenpeace report says Toshiba "fails to score on paper sourcing as it does not have a paper procurement policy which excludes suppliers that are involved in deforestation and illegal logging."

Paper Companies Are Greener Than Average, Study Indicates

Contrary to their popular image as despoilers of the forest, major paper companies get high marks for being green in a recent ranking of large U.S. companies.

All six forest-products companies in Newsweek's "Green Rankings 2010" scored in the top 35%. The magazine ranked the nation's 500 largest publicly traded companies on their environmental impact, "green policies", and reputation.

Leading the way was Kleenex maker Kimberly-Clark, ranked #76 based on a score of 80.65 out of a possible 100 despite a poor showing in the environmental impact category.

Greenpeace ended its Klearcut campaign against the company last year when it agreed to increase its usage of certified and recycled pulp. Kimberly Clark calls itself a consumer-products company, but with its purchase and processing of more than 3 million tons of pulp annually, it certainly fits into the forest-products industry.

Other forest-products companies ranked by Newsweek, along with their scores, were Domtar (#95, 79.00), Sonoco Products (#125, 76.92), International Paper (#155, 75.27), MeadWestvaco (#161, 74.89), and Weyerhaeuser (#172, 74.12).

IP made the biggest upward move from last year's inaugural ranking, jumping from #344, while Kimberly-Clark improved from #120. Domtar wasn't in last year's survey (probably because it was then classified as Canadian), while the other three slipped slightly in the rankings.

Other articles that challenge common conceptions about forestry and the forest-products industry include:

• An Environmentalist's Defense of Clearcut Logging 
• Why Planting Trees Is Not Necessarily Green 
• Condoms to the Rescue, and 5 Other Novel Ideas for Saving the Forests 
• Cutting some trees but saving the forest 

Why Planting Trees Is Not Necessarily Green

A leading biologist says that encouraging the planting of trees can lead to ecological disaster while in some cases the cutting of trees helps preserve the environment.

Dr. Bernd Heinrich's recent op-ed piece in The New York Times ridicules "easily duped bleeding-heart 'environmentalists,' who absolutely love tree planting because it sounds so 'green.'" In a forest, there is no need for people to plant trees, he explains, sounding a bit like Dead Tree Edition, only more eloquent and knowledgeable.

"A forest is an ecosystem. It is not something planted. A forest grows on its own," writes Heinrich, emeritus professor of biology at the University of Vermont and an author of numerous books about biology and ecology. "When a tree falls, the race is on immediately to replace it. In the forests I study, there are so many seeds and seedlings that if a square foot of ground space opens up, more than a hundred trees of many different species compete to grow there."

The Kyoto Protocol set a bad precedent by allowing carbon credits for planting trees but not for preserving forests, Heinrich says. That has created incentives to clear-cut forests and replace them with single-species tree farms that have "to be ever coddled with fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and fungicides."

He notes that forests are more likely to be preserved if they have economic value -- a truth that the environmental movement so often fails to grasp.

"I admit that those of us who really do care about forests have not exactly been helpful. We have not encouraged selective harvesting from naturally occurring stands, which may be necessary," Heinrich says.

For more on this subject, please see:

• Cutting Some Trees But Saving the Forest
• Illegal Logging in Indonesia: Not Funny

Illegal Logging in Indonesia: Not Funny

A government official in Indonesia has now acknowledged what environmental groups have been saying for years: The country’s enforcement of logging laws is a joke.

West Kalimantan Governor Cornelis was supposed to present “a key environmental speech” last week in support of the country’s “One Man, One Tree” effort to promote voluntary tree planting, the Jakarta Globe reports. But he kept getting interrupted by huge logging trucks rumbling by.

“If we ask the drivers, I don’t think they will have permits,” he laughed as two trucks rolled by. Finally, he ordered police to block any logging trucks until his speech was finished.

Legal or illegal, certified or not, logging has generally been an environmental nightmare in Indonesia, which has lost an estimated 70% of its original forest cover. And the tree-planting efforts ballyhooed by the government are mostly for single-species plantations that replace clear-cut natural forests.

Plans are already afoot in Indonesia to game the proposed REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries) program being debated in Copenhagen, reports Angela Dewan for NewMatilda.com. The plans involve clearing tropical rainforests (in some cases releasing greenhouse gases from the peat swamps), replacing them with “sustainable” tree plantations, and then collecting REDD credits for operating the plantations in a sustainable way.

Don’t count on the Indonesian government to stand in the way. Many have documented and described its rampant corruption -- none better than a farmer Dewan interviewed named Muhamad Nasir:

"When the government sends us a buffalo, by the time it gets here, all that is left is the tail.”

Three, or Maybe Four, Green Magazine Pioneers

While some magazine publishers get plenty of PR mileage from using paper with recycled content, the real leaders in making U.S. magazines greener have gone largely unheralded.

In a recent interview with Publishing Executive, I named three publishing companies that have been “industry pioneers” in making printed products greener. I had a fourth pioneer in mind as well but disqualified it from the list. More on that later.

Here are my green heroes:

Wenner Media
I’ve previously praised U.S. News & World Report for using Catalyst Cooled “manufactured carbon-neutral paper” throughout its “green” issue this year, but it was really following in the footsteps of Wenner’s Rolling Stone magazine. Two years ago, Wenner began changing the industry’s thinking on the environment away from simplistic discussions of recycled content when it announced that all of the magazine’s inside pages would be on Catalyst Cooled.

Wenner pays for a tree-planting program that offsets the already low carbon footprint of the paper. As far as I can tell, Wenner gets no PR or marketing mileage out of that commitment other than a small mention in each issue of the magazine. It is just doing the right thing, in good times and in bad.

Time Inc.
The “Evil Empire”, as competitors and even employees call Time, made a huge contribution by commissioning the extensive, landmark Heinz Center study in 2006 called "Following the Paper Trail". That study showed that the vast majority of a consumer magazine’s carbon footprint occurs at the paper mill and that the emissions of greenhouse gases vary widely from mill to mill.

Time also pioneered the ReMix (Recycling Magazines is Excellent!) advertising campaign that encourages consumers to recycle their magazines.

Check out this audio interview with Guy Gleysteen, Time Inc.’s production chief, who talks about how the company is lobbying paper suppliers on such issues as carbon footprint and sustainable forestry. He’s especially interesting when talking about the company’s motivation for these actions and why Time doesn't mention them in its marketing to consumers.

“The issues that you’d want to educate people on are complex and are not readily described in one or two lines that would appeal to a consumer,” says Gleysteen. He adds that Time’s efforts are about “putting our company into a position where we can be trusted relative to the resources that we use.”

Hearst
Being green seems to permeate the company’s culture, from its award-winning LEED-certified headquarters in New York to the rooftop worm farms (Ooh, gross!) that recycle waste from its Good Housekeeping kitchens in London (Oh. Cool!).

“By the end of 2008, 70% of our magazine paper comprised certified fiber. We have set an interim goal of 80% by the end of 2009,” says the publisher’s "Being Green" report, perhaps the best example of environmental transparency in the U.S. publishing industry. As part of that effort, Hearst and Time went public this week with their campaign to help small forest owners in Maine get certified.

“Being Green” addresses the recycled issue clearly and correctly: “Hearst is currently using more than 15% post-consumer recycled (PCR) paper across its portfolio of publications, primarily in the newsprint we buy. After extensive review, we currently believe newspapers and other end uses (packaging, wallboard, etc.) are the most efficient use for recycled fiber, which continues to be in short supply.”

Now for the almost fourth hero: Readers Digest Association deserves some credit for using paper with 85% recycled content throughout Every Day with Rachael Ray.

As Hearst suggests, coated paper is often not the best use for recycled pulp. But if you’re going to print a magazine in the Midwest on relatively heavy coated-groundwood paper, Myllykoski’s Alsip, IL mill is a green choice. By mixing high-brightness recycled products, such as unsold magazines and printer waste, with curbside-collected paper and virgin kraft pulp, the mill is able to make good magazine paper without bleaching. (The mill’s products are too heavy for Rolling Stone and most Time Inc. magazines, by the way.)

As with Wenner’s announcement about Catalyst Cooled, the marketing of Every Day with Her Perkiness brought much-deserved attention to a paper maker that is greener than its larger competitors.

So why am I not giving RDA as much credit for being green as Wenner, Time, and Hearst? It turns out that Myllykoski already gave Readers Digest plenty of credit: The Finnish company was left holding the bag with $1.65 million in accounts payable when RDA went Chapter 11 in August. That's not exactly a great way to reward a supplier for its environmentally friendly practices.

Do you disagree with my choices of magazine-industry green heroes? Then make your voice heard, not only by commenting on this article but also by entering the 2009 Aveda Environmental Award for Magazines.

For further reference:

• Rethinking the "Green" Magazine Issue
• Certified forestry for small Maine landowners: Does FSC certification help the earth? and More on Maine and FSC.
• Certified Forestry Is In Trouble, U.N. Report Says
• I'm an environmental idiot!: Why recycled content doesn't always make environmental sense for coated paper.
  

The Great Forest Certification War

Now that the forest-certification movement is running out of steam, two groups involved in promoting sustainable forestry have responded by declaring war on each other.

ForestEthics fired the first shots a few days ago, filing complaints of both tax fraud and greenwashing against the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. It sent letters last week asking the IRS to revoke SFI's tax-exempt status and requesting that the Federal Trade Commission investigate SFI's "unfair and deceptive" marketing practices. ForestEthics claims that SFI's forestry-certification program is inferior to Forest Stewardship Council certification.

SFI responded today by calling the ForestEthics complaints "an affront to the tremendous efforts by foresters, businesses, governments, consumers, SFI and other standards groups to preserve and protect our forests for future generations."

“We should all be focusing our resources and efforts on supporting responsible forest management and fighting deforestation and illegal logging, not wasting energy on bickering among ourselves," SFI added. A United Nations report recently concluded that the once-rapid growth of forest-certification efforts has stagnated during the past three years, Dead Tree Edition reported last month.

I'm skeptical whether FSC, which has had its own credibility issues in places like Indonesia, is significantly superior to SFI, but I welcome comment on the subject. I think the most useful service Dead Tree Edition can offer at this point is extensive excerpts from the complaints and SFI's response. Note: The rest of this article consists entirely of statements from ForestEthics and SFI that do not necessarily represent the views of Dead Tree Edition:

ForestEthics' letter to the IRS (excerpt)
"Although it is approved as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, SFI is organized, governed, and operated more like an industry trade association that promotes its private “certification” label than a separate charitable organization dedicated to setting high standards for forest products. First, SFI’s purposes — certification of private forests for a limited number of large industrial timber and paper companies — do not lessen the burden of government because the government is not in the business of providing “certification” of forestry practices.

Second, SFI substantially serves the private interest of non-exempt SFI-certified timber and paper companies. SFI became exempt under IRC 501(c)(3), but SFI was incorporated by individuals affiliated with timber and paper companies and SFI’s by-laws assign timber and paper companies one-third of its director positions. SFI is, by its own admission, virtually completely funded by the timber and paper companies whose lands and operations SFI certifies. SFI’s environmental standards are substantially developed by persons with close ties to the forest companies subject to SFI’s certification standards. During the past several years SFI has continued to maintain close administrative ties to the American Forest and Paper Association, a 501(c)(6) trade association which created SFI in 1994. SFI also serves private interests because its forestry “standards” are vague, ambiguous, and grant wide discretion to the companies whose products are certified by SFI. These standards thus appear to provide too much latitude for forest landowners to serve their private interest in profitable forestry, rather than in the charitable endeavor of protecting the environment. In practice, SFI certification standards provide in many geographic areas of the U.S. little or no more added environmental protection than state and federal laws governing for-profit forestry.

Finally, we have a good faith basis to believe that SFI, a 509(a)(2) organization, may run afoul of the IRC requirement that a 509(a)(1) public charity must receive at least one-third of its financial support from “public sources” and that this one-third cannot be donated by “disqualified persons.” By its own admission, virtually all of SFI’s financial support (which was approximately $5 million in 2007) comes from the companies whose forests or products are certified by SFI. SFI refused to provide us with a breakdown of its contributors so we are unable to make a “disqualified person” analysis but it appears that SFI may be violating the IRC’s “disqualified” person rules as a result of its prosperous fundraising and relatively small universe of corporate donors.

SFI’s 501(c)(3) and 509(a)(2) status permits it to claim the mantle and tax benefits of a nonprofit public charity, thereby seeking to gain environmental and social credibility, and allowing its supporters to deduct their contributions. SFI’s 501(c)(3) status not only impacts taxpayers but works to the disadvantage of forest certification organizations that serve a public charitable purpose but must compete with SFI.

We request the IRS to investigate and, if appropriate, determine that SFI is not properly organized and operated as a tax-exempt charitable organization under Code sections 501(c)(3) and 509(a)(2).

ForestEthics' letter to the FTC (excerpt)
"The Washington Forest Law Center represents ForestEthics, a non-profit conservation organization based in Bellingham, WA, and San Francisco, CA, dedicated in part to promoting credible forest certification programs through consumer awareness and the marketplace. This complaint reports the “Sustainable Forestry Initiative, Inc.” (SFI),1 a forest “certification” system which we believe engages in several unfair and deceptive acts and practices on which corporate and individual lumber and paper consumers are relying. Hundreds of millions of dollars in “green” spending may be at issue. We ask the FTC to investigate this complaint and to seek appropriate declaratory and injunctive relief in the courts to require SFI to comply with federal trade law.

Alarmed by global warming and worldwide deforestation, wood and paper consumers today are increasingly demanding more environmentally-friendly forest products. Consequently, the marketplace for “green” forest products, which could soon reach $80 billion in four years, is cluttered with claims and labels that a forest product has been “certified” or was “sustainably” grown and harvested in an environmentally and socially sound manner. But if these claims are going to compete fairly in the marketplace, and if they are going to produce real on-the-ground improvement in forestry, it is essential that the FTC investigate and respond when claims of “sustainable” and “environmental” forest management rely on deception, confusion, vagueness, or ambiguity.

The SFI forest certification program was started in 1994 by the American Forest and Paper Association (AFPA), a Washington D.C.-based timber and paper trade association. Since 2007, SFI has represented itself as an “independent not-for-profit public charity.” SFI’s budget was over $5 million in 2007. The companies it certifies own 90% of private forestland in the U.S. and produce about 50% and 85% of wood and panel products, respectively, in the U.S. We believe the SFI forest product certification system competes unfairly and deceptively for several reasons.

Deceptive Label: SFI maintains at least one label on its products that is deceptive and misleading. SFI’s “Certified Fiber Sourcing” label implies that wood or paper bearing the label comes from SFI-certified forests. Yet, in fact, the SFI “Certified Fiber Sourcing” label provides no guarantee that any of the material was harvested from an SFI-certified forest.

Independent, Non-Profit Public Charity: In aggressive and well-funded national advertising, SFI and SFI-certified companies represent to lumber and paper purchasers and the general public that SFI is an “independent, not-for-profit public charity” directed and operated by a diverse and “independent” board of directors. These attributes are key to SFI’s campaign for environmental credibility and marketing. This claim is deceptive because SFI is funded almost entirely by the large timber and paper companies whose forests are certified by SFI and SFI receives virtually no general public financial support. Moreover, true to its origin as a program of the AFPA, SFI’s governance, administration, and standards-setting process is dominated by SFI-certified companies and individuals. While SFI has nonindustry board members, many of these individuals are affiliated with organizations that receive substantial financial support from SFI-certified companies. In the final analysis, SFI is not a standards-setting entity in which industry members participate; it is a heavily marketed industry-developed and funded “green” label that represents itself as an independent charitable organization.

Deceptive and Unverifiable Environmental Standards: SFI’s forest certification standards are deceptive and misleading. SFI’s standards deploylofty ecological terms but, in fact, they are vague, ambiguous, filled with qualifiers and loopholes.” On balance, they give forest managers discretion to manage their forest lands in ways that are inconsistent with SFI’s lofty environmental standards. To make matters worse, SFI certification lacks transparency: a member of the public or a competitor cannot find out what a landowner is doing (or not doing) in its forests and has access only to uselessly general audit summaries. Furthermore, SFI’s standards are enforced only by auditors which are landowner-paid consulting entities.

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative's statement

Washington, D.C. – From governments to conservation groups to foresters, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative has been globally recognized as a credible and effective forest management certification program. “The rapid growth of our program shows that more customers and consumers recognize the value of third-party forest certification, and it means we are making a difference on the ground,” said SFI President and CEO Kathy Abusow. “We are dedicated to finding ways to work together with all credible forest certification standards toward our common goal of expanding certification. That is especially important when you consider that 90 percent of the world’s forests are not certified at all.”

In light of that common goal, ForestEthics’ recent statements and activities “are an affront to the tremendous efforts by foresters, businesses, governments, consumers, SFI and other standards groups,to preserve and protect our forests for future generations,” said Abusow. “We should all be focusing our resources and efforts on supporting responsible forest management and fighting deforestation and illegal logging, not wasting energy on bickering among ourselves.”

Abusow pointed out that SFI “has been a fully independent non-profit organization since 2007 and our forest certification standard is developed through a transparent public process.” She added that SFI’s “labels and claims conform to government, consumer and audit requirements in the United States and globally.”

Here are some other facts about SFI:

• The group’s three-chamber Board of Directors represents environmental, social and economic interests equally. Board members include representatives of environmental, conservation, professional and academic groups, independent professional loggers, small family forest owners, public officials, labor and the forest products industry. No one sector can control SFI – Board actions must be approved by a minimum of 80% of those present.

• Last year, the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers issued a statement that read in part: “Canada is proud to have more certified forests than any other country. Governments in Canada continue to provide technical and policy support to the ongoing development of certification in Canada. The forest management standards of the CSA, FSC, and SFI all meet the above criteria. Customers can be assured that these forest certification standards are complementary to and demonstrate each Government’s sustainable forest management regime.”

• SFI-certified products are recognized by many leading green building rating programs in Canada, the U.S. and overseas. In North America, this includes the Green Globes™ building assessment and rating system, the American National Standards Institute’s National Green Building Standard (administered by the National Association of Home Builders) and the Built Green Society of Canada. SFI-certified products are also recognized under government procurement policies in Japan and the UK.

• The US Government Services Agency (GSA) recognizes SFI as well as FSC in their Solicitation for Offers requirement SFO Section 7.4 Wood Products (revised August, 2008). It states: “For all new installations of wood products, the Lessor is encouraged to use independently certified forest products. For information on certification and certified wood products, refer to the Forest Certification Resource Center, the Forest Stewardship Council United States, or the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.”

• The Conservation Fund, Conservation International and the American Bird Conservancy are just a few of the more than 1000 organizations involved in the SFI program.

• Several U.S. states, including Washington and Maine have weighed in with support of inclusive green building standards.

• TerraChoice Environmental Marketing recently recognized the SFI label as a credible eco-label in its Greenwashing Report 2009, saying that our program meets three key criteria – third party certified, publicly available standard and transparent standard development process. SFI (along with FSC) are among 14 labels that the group recognizes as “legitimate.”

• Tom Hinton, president and CEO of the 82,000-member American Consumer Council said last year, “We support the good work of SFI and applaud the positive and progressive things SFI is doing.., When it comes to environmentally friendly claims, consumers want to see the proof and not just the sizzle.”

The UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), which represents 56 member states and involves more than 70 international professional organizations and other non-governmental organizations and The UNECE Timber Committee and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) European Forestry Commission released a report titled Forest Products Annual Market Review which found that:

• “In terms of numbers, the most significant [forest certification program] is the SFI Program in North America.”
• The rate of increase in global certified forest area slowed dramatically since 2006 (growing by only 1.3% to reach 325.2 million hectares in 2009). By May 2009, about eight percent of the world’s forests were certified (54% in Europe and 38% in North America.
• Green building initiatives are a mixed blessing for forest certification. “Green building initiatives standards giving exclusive recognition to particular forest-certification brands may help drive demand for these brands at the expense of wider appreciation of the environmental merits of wood.”

“SFI has seen tremendous growth and acceptance in the marketplace,” said Abusow. “I am proud that we have over 240 program participants and work closely with not just conservation groups, but also organizations like Habitat for Humanity. We have carefully expended our resources on educating businesses and consumers about the importance of sustainable forest management and producing and purchasing products sourced responsibly. ”

Certified Forestry Is In Trouble, U.N. Report Says

The certified-forestry movement is running out of steam, a United Nations report suggests.

"The pace of expansion of global certified forest area has slowed dramatically in the last three years," says the international agency's recently released Forest Products Annual Market Review, 2008-2009. The proportion of "industrial roundwood" coming from forests certified by such environmental organizations as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has actually decreased recently, to 25.9%, it says.

"Certified forest area increased by around 50 million hectares a year between 2001 and 2005 – mainly due to a rapid increase in certified forest area in North America – then the rate slowed by half to 25 million hectares a year in 2006 and 2007. More recently the rate has stagnated even further, not exceeding 4 million hectares between May 2008 and May 2009." Certified forestry has actually lost some ground in North America and Europe, the U.N. report adds.

One culprit is that the sustainable-forestry movement is running out of low-hanging fruit: "Now that many of the largest state- and industry-owned lands in the developed world are already
certified, the certification movement faces the significant challenge of expanding in more difficult
areas" such as small forestry operations and developing countries.

Ignorance is another hurdle: "According to a recent survey, only 12% of US family forest owners have heard of forest certification."

From a financial standpoint, sellers of wood products often cannot justify the additional costs of sourcing from certified forests: "Generally, there is great reluctance among end-users to pay premiums for certified or verified legal wood products, a situation which places significant limits
on the ability of suppliers to charge more."

Only some fairly specialized markets have price premiums for certified products. In Europe, FSC-certified tropical wood from Africa and Brazil carries the highest premiums, 20% to 50% above the prices for non-certified products, the report says.

One growth area is chain-of-custody certifications, up 41% in the past year. Numerous printers and paper companies tout their chain-of-custody certifications as evidence of their green-ness without mentioning whether they actually use any certified fiber or paper.

The U.N. study does not address the correlation between certification and sustainable forestry. (See "Does FSC certification help the earth?" for more on this question.) There appear to be many sustainably managed forests that are not certified and some certified forests that are not sustainably managed.

The major forest-certification schemes need to overcome the perception that they are only for large land owners that can afford the administrative costs (or, in some countries, the bribery costs) of obtaining certification.

Rethinking the "Green" Magazine Issue

Finally! A magazine publisher is doing a “green” issue on paper that truly is environmentally friendly.

The usual approach to environmentally themed issues is to use paper with a bit of recycled content without regard to any other environmental issues or whether the recycled content is being used appropriately. But for its April issue, the “Energy and Environment Guide”, U.S. News & World Report has actually put some thought into (and dollars behind) making the issue’s paper earth friendly.

As a result, all of the issue’s body stock will be on carbon-neutral paper with fiber that has been certified as being sourced from sustainably managed forests, the publisher says. The body stock will be Electracote, a coated-mechanical paper from Catalyst Paper’s Port Alberni, British Columbia mill. Dead Tree Edition has already noted the product’s ill-advised name but has no qualms about Catalyst’s low emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that have been linked to global climate change. Its environmental record has earned it recognition from the World Wildlife Fund and other environmental groups.

“U.S. News has been looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint," said Mark W. White, the publisher's Vice President of Manufacturing (and a member of my LinkedIn network.) "We applaud the efforts Catalyst has made to reduce its carbon footprint while maintaining the quality of its paper.”

Like most other Catalyst products, normal Electracote has a low carbon footprint because the vast majority of the mill’s energy comes from such carbon-neutral sources as hydroelectric dams and forestry waste (bark, for example). A groundbreaking study from The Heinz Center, “Following the Paper Trail,” found that a majority of American consumer magazines’ carbon footprint came from energy used to make the paper.

U.S. News is going a step further by participating in the Catalyst Cooled program, which was pioneered by Rolling Stone magazine but has had few other participants. Through Catalyst Cooled, U.S. News pays a small premium to offset what few greenhouse-gas emissions occur at the mill to make the paper. The publisher has been using Catalyst Cooled for more than a year, but this is the first time the paper will appear throughout an entire issue of the magazine.

Catalyst is careful to call Catalyst Cooled paper “manufacturing carbon neutral” because the offset only covers mill emissions, not what occurs elsewhere, such as transport to and from the mill. U.S. News says it minimizes the transport-related emissions by having paper shipped to its printer in full railcars.

Carbon offsets have been controversial because some are of questionable environmental value and because they have been seen as a license to pollute. But Catalyst has one of the best records in any industry for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. And the offsets pay for a park-reforestation program that clearly results in carbon sequestration.

What about recycled content? Here is U.S. News' answer: “Catalyst is one of the largest manufacturers and users of post-consumer recycled pulp in North America. All of that pulp goes into lower-brightness products like newsprint. The yield (the amount of recycled pulp that ends up in the paper) is more than 85% for such products but would be less than 70% for the brighter coated paper that will be used in our April issue.” In other words, U.S. News avoided the environmentally questionable practice of upcycling.

What U.S. News does not mention is that Electracote uses far less virgin fiber than any allegedly eco-friendly coated freesheet with 30% post-consumer recycled fiber. That’s because of its light weight and the use of mostly mechanical (groundwood) pulp, which consumes far less wood fiber than does chemical (kraft) pulp.

And for those who advocate recycled paper because of its supposedly lower carbon footprint, here’s an interesting tidbit from a recent Catalyst financial report: “The Company’s overall carbon footprint increased in 2008 with the acquisition of the Snowflake mill, which is located in a heavily fossil fuel-dependent jurisdiction and whose primary energy source is coal.” The Arizona mill makes newsprint solely from recycled fiber.

There’s a place for both recycled content that is used appropriately and for virgin fiber from sustainably managed forests. Catalyst’s approach is a good model to follow – processing lots of recycled paper into pulp, using that pulp in the most environmentally appropriate products, obtaining most of its virgin fiber from sawmill residuals, supporting sustainable forestry, working to reduce its energy consumption, and trying to get more of that energy from carbon-neutral sources.

Is Catalyst really more virtuous than most other profit-driven paper companies? (And when was the last time you saw “profit” and “paper company” in the same sentence?)

Enlightened management is part of the story, but for the most part its location in British Columbia shapes its environmental outlook. Native peoples there have been practicing sustainable forestry for centuries. Hydroelectric power is abundant. Vigorous debates and boycotts shook its paper and forestry industries in the 1990s. BC has probably the strictest forestry regulations in North America. And there’s little debate in the province about whether global climate change is real – not when a plague of beetles spurred by unusually warm winters is chewing up its stunningly beautiful forests.

“Recycled content” may be an easy sell to consumers. But let’s hope more publishers (and other users of paper) start doing something about their carbon footprints as well.

Cutting some trees but saving the forest

It’s good news when trees are being planted and bad news when trees are being cut, right?

So that means the Indonesian government’s announcement that it is planting 100 million trees per year is good news for the earth, right? The fact that timber operations in Maine have mostly stopped planting trees where they have cut is bad news, right? And environmentalists should cheer that the current slump in timber demand is putting a lot of loggers and sawmills out of business, right?

The vast majority of people would say “Right” to all of those questions. And they would be wrong.

I can’t blame them. I used to be impressed when paper companies told me (back in the 1990s, when paper companies still owned forests) that they planted two trees for every one they cut down.

It only took me a decade to ask an obvious question: Why do you need to plant trees in a forest? After all, it didn’t take human intervention to start the forest or to replant trees that have died there over the millennia. (As I have explained previously, I'm an environmental idiot.)

A logger gave me the answer: Timber operations generally plant trees when they want an area to have a single species rather than taking the pot luck of mixed species that occurs in a natural forest. That often means clear cutting, then the spraying of herbicides to keep down the vines for a few years until the seedlings are big enough.

The planting of trees in Maine (and many other North American forests) has largely ended because loggers there have generally stopped clear cutting. It’s not that they have suddenly gone green. They have found it’s more profitable to harvest trees selectively, go to the trouble of separating the different species for different markets, and then let the forest regenerate itself. That eliminates expenses for seedlings, planting, spraying, etc. (Isn’t it funny how green practices often end up saving a lot of green stuff?)

Indonesia’s massive tree planting is a symptom of an environmental nightmare: The country has lost about 70 percent of its original forest cover. Cynic that I am, I suspect that much of the tree planting is for sterile palm-oil plantations, not for reforestation.

Many environmental groups are realizing that a key to protecting a region’s privately owned forests is maintaining the viability of the region’s forest-products industry.

“We have to realize private-land timber companies are our friend. Once land gets broken up into smaller pieces, our ability to protect it is eliminated," said Guido Rahr, president of the Wild Salmon Center in Portland, Ore. The center has joined with other environmental groups that want to provide funds or other support to help the struggling timber industry stay in business, according to the The Oregonian.

The Nature Conservancy is involved in a massive effort to ensure that more than 1 million acres of timber-company land in Montana do not get sold to developers. Kirk Johnson of the New York Times recently wrote that “groups like the Wilderness Society . . . say that working forests with controlled harvests are healthier, safer, and more likely to be preserved” and that small forest-region towns with a sawmill as “an anchoring employer are less prone to real estate speculation and development.”

We environmentalists often talk about saving trees, but what we really need to focus on is saving forests.

"The environmental community has spent 40 years perfecting the art of saying no and has almost no ability to say yes," says Lawrence Selzer, president of The Conservation Fund. If we can’t find a way to say yes to private land owners trying to make a living from their forests in a sustainable way, don’t be surprised to see those forests get turned into ski slopes and shopping centers.

Does FSC certification help the earth?

A paper executive made an interesting admission recently to Dead Tree Edition regarding Forest Stewardship Council certification, which many environmental groups view as the gold standard for sustainable forestry.

The executive was describing an effort to get blanket FSC certification for many small forestry operations in Maine rather than having each go through a separate and expensive audit process. Sustainable forestry is common practice in Maine, but small family-run operations have found that the FSC process is stacked in favor of the big guys.

"How would these small operations have to change their forestry practices to get FSC certification?" DTE asked.

"Not at all. They're already doing it, " the executive answered.