ForestEthics, a group devoted to preserving forests in Canada and elsewhere, lauded growing acceptance among catalogers to source paper in an environmentally sustainable way but slammed some catalogers like Sears and Lands’ End for showing “stubborn resistance” to such practices.
Phone calls to Sears, which is also Lands’ End’s parent company, were not returned at deadline.
In a statement on its Web site, Lands End said, “we have reduced our catalog paper consumption by more than 30% over the last three years. We’ve accomplished this through a number of efforts and we are constantly improving our technology to achieve even greater gains in this area.”
“In the nearly five years that we’ve been working to transform the environmental practices of the catalog industry, we have seen impressive results,” said Ginger Cassady of ForestEthics, in a statement. “Leaders like LL Bean and Victoria’s Secret prove that there is no reason why laggards like Sears cannot meet an environmentally sensible standard.”
In its 2007 Catalog Industry Environmental Scorecard, Forest Ethnics gave holiday-themed scores of Naughty, Nice, and Checking Twice, evaluating 21 companies on whether or not endangered forests are cut to produce its catalogs; whether the company uses Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper; the amount of post-consumer recycled content in its catalogs and the extent of the company’s efforts to reduce overall paper consumption.
Whereas only three companies-including Dell and Williams-Sonoma-achieved satisfactory scores in the 2005 scorecard, this year’s scorecard shows an emerging trend toward more sustainable practices, with the nine companies on Santa’s ‘nice list’ now matching the nine on the ‘naughty list,’ according to ForestEthics.
Among the highlights:
* Naughty. With the release of its 188-page Wishbook catalog following a 13-year hiatus, Sears is growing more destructive to endangered forests at a time when forests, freshwater sources, and wildlife are most threatened. Sears gets a big lump of coal for its non-efforts this year, having done little to indicate that its 20th Century mindset will be reset for a 21st Century era of sustainable business, said ForestEthics.
* Nice. Patagonia has crafted a paper policy that backs up their reputation for savvy sustainability. They earn a caribou for each of the four criteria evaluated, which is fitting given what these policies will do for caribou whose Canadian Boreal habitat continues to be damaged by companies that don’t make the grade.
ForestEthics has been working on these issues for the past several years.
As far back as 2003, the group was trying to get catalogers to commit to sourcing paper in an environmentally sustainable way (Direct, Oct. 1, 2003).
In January 2005, ForestEthics ran an ad in The New York Times aimed at shaming the Victoria’s Secret catalog and its parent Limited Brands Inc. for apparently using paper from endangered Canadian forests in the more than 1 million catalogs it sends per day.
About a year ago, the two groups worked out a deal whereby Limited would no longer sourced paper from environmentally sensitive areas in Canada (Direct Newsline, Dec. 6, 2006).
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