Staples To Cease Using Old-Growth Forest Products
By Shane Wallin
The California Aggie (U. Cal. Davis)

(U-WIRE) DAVIS, Calif.- Staples announced a stronger procurement policy for their paper products on Tuesday, marking the success of a non-traditional form of demonstration that has saved thousands of acres a year of old-growth forests.

In a telephone announcement Tuesday morning, Staples Vice Chair Joe Vassalluzzo said that after working with their shareholders, environmental groups like Dogwood Alliance and ForestEthics, they will ensure that their suppliers will not use old-growth forest and endangered forest fibers in their paper products.

According to Vassalluzzo, the new procurement policy will be implemented over the next few years and will help protect endangered forests and support well-managed forests.

The announcement is part of a long-term campaign started two years ago called the Paper Campaign. According to Ecopledge.com, which organized an Oct. 23 phone-in campaign to the office supply company, Staples was the first company to be targeted because they are the industry leader.

At the University of California-Davis, Ecopledge.com, a student organization that is involved in the Paper Campaign, organized the phone-in campaign to voice their support for Staples no longer purchasing and selling paper products that compromise old-growth forests.

Ecopledge.com’s Pacific Coast Field Organizer Ross Hammersley said that the new policy can be used to persuade other companies, such as OfficeMax, to follow Staples’ lead.

Kim Kunaniec, CALPIRG vice chapter chair and co-director of ecopledge.com at UCD, said that they are very excited about Staples’ announcement.

“Staples’ new policy is the beginning of the end of the practice of destroying endangered forests to make disposable paper products,” she said.

Kunaniec also noted that the fact that Staples announced their new policy so soon after the ecopledge.com phone-in and postcard campaign shows that students can make a change.

Specifically, Staples’ policy will ensure that the company sells paper products that average 30 percent post-consumer recycled content, phases out its purchasing of paper products from suppliers that use endangered forest fibers, and creates an environmental affairs division.

Todd Paglia, campaign director for ForestEthics, said that going directly to the marketplace and working with companies is a new form of activism that is being used more frequently.

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