When it comes to forest products, Bio Pappel, HP, Melissa & Doug, REI and Amazon are all leaders in responsible sourcing. What does this commitment look like in practice?
More and more consumers are demanding sustainable attributes in the products
they buy — encouraging retailers and consumer packaged goods companies to reap
the benefits of this opportunity by providing products with tangible, credible
environmental and social benefits.
When it comes to forest products, Bio Pappel, HP, Melissa & Doug, REI
and Amazon are all leaders in responsible sourcing — a fact that earned them
Forest Stewardship Council Leadership
Awards
for their deep commitment to responsible forestry and for making thousands of
FSC-certified products available to businesses and consumers. What does this
commitment look like in practice?
Bio Pappel is one of the largest
recycled-paper manufacturers in North and South America, and the first
Mexican company that is FSC certified for use of 100 percent recycled raw
material in paper production. While Bio Pappel may not be a household name, it
supplies some of the biggest brands — including Amazon and Titan packaging,
Samsung packaging, Xerox paper, Scribe and pen+Gear notebooks,
LALA Yomi milk and yogurt packaging, and Kirkland Signature food items.
Its products can be found in Walmart, Costco and other major retailers.
“At Bio Pappel, we like to say that we are generating shared value,” says
Israel
Martinez,
auditor at Bio Pappel. “In this sense, FSC certification gives us the guarantee
of sustainable management of raw material coming from forests or recycled
material used to produce paper — which consequently encourages more responsible
consumption and allows end consumers to be more aware of their footprint on the
planet.”
The 50 Liter Home: Lessons from a multi-industry global collaboration
Join us as leaders from Electrolux and Procter & Gamble share insights and progress to date on ‘The 50 Liter Home’ — a partnership aimed at reducing water consumption in the home, while also generating awareness that leads to better lifestyle choices for sustainable water use — Wednesday, Oct. 16, at SB'24 San Diego.
For more than a decade, HP and World Wildlife Fund have worked together to
achieve HP’s responsible sourcing
goals
— including zero deforestation for its HP-brand paper and paper-based packaging.
This collaboration has included the development of HP’s industry-leading
responsible fiber-sourcing policy; By 2020, HP met this commitment with
FSC-certified or recycled fiber sourced for over 95 percent of HP brand paper
and paper-based packaging.
HP continues to expand on its commitment to responsible sourcing with additional
efforts rooted in protecting, restoring and improving the management of
forests. One
example is HP and WWF’s work to increase the area of FSC-certified forest in
China to 219,830 acres by 2025. As of July 2022, over 33,000 hectares
(81,000 acres) of forest have been FSC certified in China.
Over the next decade, HP and WWF’s efforts will include collaborating with local
communities and forest managers to increase FSC-certified forest areas in key
landscapes, as well as identifying and addressing obstacles to obtaining FSC
certification and improving forest-management practices. Ultimately, HP has
committed $80 million to restoring, protecting and improving the management of
nearly a million acres of forest — an area approximately five times the size of
New York City.
As the #1 preschool brand for wooden toys, Melissa & Doug has a longstanding
commitment to "making timeless, sustainable toys for a thriving and inclusive
world.” The brand formalized its commitments with an initiative called "Project
Restore,"
to more deeply integrate sustainability culture and practices across the
organization.
After obtaining FSC Chain of Custody certification in 2020, the purpose-driven
toy manufacturer became the first major US toy brand to earn FSC certification
for its new stationery
line,
which was independently certified by SCS Global
Services. Melissa & Doug is on track to
achieve its commitment to ensure 100 percent of paper products and more than
half of its wood products sold are FSC certified by 2025.
Healthy forests are essential for people to enjoy the outdoors; they’re also
essential to REI’s business. REI uses fiber and the resulting paper products
throughout its operations — in the form of flyers, cardboard, shopping bags,
hangtags and more. As a co-op that inspires its members to spend more time
outside,
sustainable forestry is a natural focus.
REI prioritizes paper-based packaging for its own products that are FSC
certified or made from certified post-consumer waste, and prioritizes paper
products with the same attributes. With the assistance of the Outdoor Industry
Association
and the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, REI published sustainable
packaging
guidelines
to encourage and educate its vendors, including FSC as a preferred attribute.
These guidelines support not only REI Co-op and Co-op Cycles, but also the
brands they sell within their stores and the greater outdoor and cycling
industries.
REI’s Product Impact
Standards
are designed to help its partner brands create more sustainable and inclusive
products. Its paper and
paper products purchasing
policy
is designed to positively influence paper supply chains well beyond the
company’s immediate sphere and to support sustainable forestry.
FSC is one of many third-party certifications in Amazon’s Climate Pledge
Friendly
(CPF) program — which currently encompasses over 350,000 products, 20,000+
brands and counting. CPF was created to help customers discover and
choose
more sustainable products on Amazon.
At SB’22 San Diego, Zac
Ludington — CPF’s Principal Program
Manager — shared data from surveys on consumer
trends
and trust in sustainability
certifications,
noting:
-
75 percent of consumers surveyed consider the use of sustainable materials
to be an important purchasing factor. (McKinsey, EU)
-
53 percent of Millennials say they are willing to forgo a brand in order to
buy products that are environmentally friendly. (Nielsen, Global)
-
49 percent of respondents are willing to pay more for environmentally
friendly options. (Mintel, US)
-
26 percent of consumers surveyed said they have started, or stopped,
purchasing a product due to its environmental impact. (Shelton Group,
US)
Published Feb 14, 2023 7am EST / 4am PST / 12pm GMT / 1pm CET
Sponsored Content
/ This article is sponsored by
Forest Stewardship Council.
This article, produced in cooperation with the Sustainable Brands editorial team, has been paid for by one of our sponsors.
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