How U.S. Retailers Help Degrade and Destroy Forests

Forests are vital. Around 1.6 billion people worldwide depend on healthy forests to make a living. Forests contain 80 percent of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. Forests also store carbon, keeping it from entering the atmosphere. However, forest degradation and deforestation is a global problem.

Over the last 20 years, about 250 million acres of forest area have disappeared, equivalent to Texas and New Mexico combined. Forest degradation is likely far bigger. Deforestation and degradation account for 11 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The tissue industry contributes to forest degradation and deforestation. According to a recent report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Selling the World’s Forests, U.S. retailers still sell paper towels, toilet paper, and other tissue products sourced from climate-critical forests.

Retailers in the U.S. sell tissue brands affiliated with Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), a company with a history of environmental and human rights violations in Indonesia. APP is linked to the deforestation of tropical peatlands and community rights violations. The Environmental Paper Network (EPN) found that, as of March 2024, these brands are available from retailers, including Home Depot, Kroger, Lowe’s, and Walmart.

The Boreal Forest Nightmare

Most tissue pulp in the U.S. comes from Canada’s boreal forest. The boreal forest is a 270 million-hectare forest stretching from Newfoundland and Labrador on the Atlantic Coast to British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. It is the largest intact forest in the world. It stores 30 to 40 percent of land-based carbon, twice as much carbon as oil reserves, and almost twice as much per acre as tropical forests. Around 28 percent of the global boreal zone is in Canada, so what happens there affects the rest of the world’s environment. Over 600 indigenous communities call the Canadian boreal forest home, as do boreal caribou, pine marten, and billions of songbirds.

Logging destroys more than a million acres of boreal forest in Canada annually, according to NRDC’s 2023 edition of their Issue with Tissue report. That is equivalent to seven NHL rinks every minute. This destruction occurs partly because of the tissue industry. Virgin pulp is 23 percent of the forest product products exported by Canada. Pulp and paper manufacturing accounts for 36 percent of Canada’s GDP for forest products. Canada is the largest producer of northern bleached softwood kraft (NBSK) pulp, which tissue manufacturers favor. Around half of Canada’s NBSK is used in tissue production.

The American Tissue Companies Destroying Canada’s Boreal Forest

Many large tissue companies in the U.S. rely on virgin fiber pulp to make their products. Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, and Georgia-Pacific have the largest market shares in the tissue market. All three rely on virgin pulp for their at-home tissue brands. Procter & Gamble states in its Wood Pulp Procurement Policy that it pledged to avoid wood from high conservation value forests and said it would innovate to reduce its reliance on virgin pulp fiber.

NRDC found that Procter and Gamble made little progress toward its commitments and continues to source virgin pulp from boreal forests. Its at-home tissue products (Charmin, Bounty, and Puffs) rely exclusively on virgin forest fiber. The company has made minimal progress in using more alternative fibers or recycled content in its at-home brands.

Kimberly-Clark relies almost entirely on virgin fiber for its at-home tissue products. However, it committed to reducing its “natural forest fiber” footprint by 50 percent by 2025. The company evaluated the most viable alternative fibers and started using them in its at-home tissue products. Its total tissue fiber is 24 percent post-consumer recycled, while 60 percent of its tissue fiber is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.

Georgia-Pacific has logging operations in Canada’s boreal forest, although it relies more on virgin fiber from southeastern U.S. forests. The company has yet to commit to ceasing operations in severely degraded boreal caribou habitat. It relies nearly exclusively on virgin fiber for its at-home tissue brands. None of the brands are FSC-certified.

What Retailers Can Do To Minimize Forest Degradation

The market is shifting, and consumers increasingly want more sustainable products. Products with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) claims accounted for 56 percent of all growth, according to a McKinsey & Company analysis. A 2022 global study by Simon-Kucher & Partners found that over a third of global consumers will pay more for sustainably produced products. The study also found that 85 percent of consumers bought sustainable alternatives in the last five years.

U.S. retailers can help protect forests, especially the Canadian boreal forest. They can start by committing to “no deforestation, no peat, and no exploitation” (NDPE) and no forest degradation. Those retailers can also stock their shelves with tissue that contains recycled content or alternative fibers. They can also educate their customers by providing information about which tissue products are more sustainable.


Photo by roya ann miller on Unsplash

Gina-Marie Cheeseman
Gina-Marie Cheesemanhttp://www.justmeans.com/users/gina-marie-cheeseman
Gina-Marie Cheeseman, freelance writer/journalist/copyeditor about.me/gmcheeseman Twitter: @gmcheeseman

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