Kleercut

Kleercut is the name of an former campaign conducted by Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and others towards Kimberly-Clark. It lasted from 2004 to 2009. Kimberly-Clark is the world’s largest manufacturer of tissue products, most notably the Kleenex brand. According to its annual environmental report, the company purchases over 3.1 million metric tonnes (3.4 million tons) of virgin fiber from logging companies annually. The Kleercut campaign claims that this fiber is derived from wood pulp from old growth forests. Kimberly-Clark claims that the forests in question are largely cut for timber. The Kleercut campaign claims that Kimberly-Clark support the clearcutting of such forests in Canada and the United States, including forests habitat for wolverine and threatened wildlife the woodland caribou. Kimberly-Clark has responded that many of its supplies are certified by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative or the Canadian Standards Association

Detailed campaign goals

The campaign is asking Kimberly-Clark to:

• Stop using wood fiber from endangered forests such as the Boreal forest.
• Stop producing tissue products using only virgin wood fibers and instead increase the use of post-consumer recycled fiber in all of its products.
• Utilize Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) eco-certified forestry operations for what virgin wood fibers it does use.

Online Kleercut campaign

The online Kleercut campaign utilizes the open-source Content Management System, Drupal. The Kleercut campaign is centered around a philosophy that an effective and engaged grassroots is needed for a successful campaign. According to Greenpeace the Kleercut campaign is "one of the more successful online forest campaigns in recent Canadian history." Greenpeace claims "1000 new sign-ups each month."[1]

Forest Certification

One of the main demands to Kimberly-Clark and other large customers of Canadian logging companies operating in ancient forests is to turn to the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a performance based forest certification program supported by local communities, environmental organizations, aboriginal groups, and industry. Kimberly-Clark currently sources the majority of its pulp (near 3 million tons) from Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI) and Canadian Standards Association (CSA) certified logging operations.

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification has been criticized as well. While the most common criticism is that FSC is overly political, for example in Australia's forest Minister Abetz said "a limiting feature of the FSC is the involvement of environmental organisations, particularly WWF and Greenpeace. WWF and Greenpeace formed the FSC in 1994 as a vehicle to further their political objectives and to take control of forest management and its regulation away from Governments." [2]. It has also been pointed out that: "The largest certified clearcut in the world is on an FSC certified forest in Ontario." [3] One organization critical of FSC is Greenwood Earth Alliance who point that FSC certified forest "cover large industrial-scale operations involving massive clearcutting and even-aged management" and that at least one FSC certified company operating in Canada "engage in clearcutting, high-grading, even-aged management, overlogging, and very large scale destruction of habitat through industrial logging." [4]=

Victory

This excrept from the Kleercut website explains how the campaign was won: 5 August 2009: Kimberly-Clark releases new environmental policy.

"The Kleercut campaign is over.

Canada's precious Boreal Forest is better conserved today. So are ancient forests around the world.

At a joint news conference in Washington DC, Greenpeace and the Kimberly-Clark Corporation, the world’s largest tissue-product manufacturer, announced an historic agreement that will ensure greater protection and sustainable management of Canada's Boreal Forest and other ancient forests around the world.

The agreement also will stand out as a model for forest-products companies worldwide." File:Kleercut victory.jpg

Sources

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External links

• Kleercut campaign website
• Kleercut Groups
• Photo Gallery of Kimberly-Clark forest destruction
• Metafore Forest Certification
• Kimberly-Clark response (PDF)