Pacific Views

Small Victory For Forests

Boise Cascade, one of the largest office supply companies, has yielded to pressure from customers and activists and agreed to stop buying unsustainable forest products. (Thanks, guys!) And I'll note here that I rather expect it was the customer pressure that had the most impact, though several environmental groups supplied policy input:

...Boise Cascade will stop cutting timber from old-growth forests in the U.S. in 2004, and will stop buying wood from endangered forests in places such as Chile, Indonesia and Canada as they are identified.

Boise Cascade will also give purchasing preference to suppliers who use wood from certified forests, and will track the origin of the wood products it receives.

...The company first announced in 2002 that it would stop harvesting the ancient trees in coming years. But industry analysts questioned whether the move would bring back customers who cut ties because of public sentiment against the practice.

Some customers, including Kinko's paper products and sportswear companies Patagonia and L.L. Bean, have stopped buying Boise Cascade products. ...

So nice when the news isn't all doom and gloom, especially when it's about corporate behavior. As the article goes on to relate, the company is preparing to acquire Office Max, so this is a policy change that can have far reaching effects.

And speaking of far reaching effects, remember that even if you meticulously recycle everything at home, your place of employment is probably a far bigger source of waste. Think about what you can do to get your company recycling, or using recycled paper products (which are really quite nice now.)

Of course, it's prudent to check whether or not the janitorial staff is into the recycling groove. It doesn't do a bit of good to separate out all your clean waste paper if the cleaning crew comes along at night and pops it into the same bin as the rest of the trash.

We can make our own small victories for forests, even if we don't have the purchasing power of Boise Cascade.