Kleenex, one of the world’s largest producers of home paper products, announced this morning that it will abide by the higher levels of the Forest Stewardship Council regarding the use of the fiber in the manufacture of its products.

Allen Hershkowitz, the paper expert at NRDC, has a lot to say about this half- arsed effort on his blog-

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ahershkowitz/kimberlyclarks_products_remain.html

The reason for this "baby step" rating is that the new policy is to ensure that 40% of its North American fiber is either recycled or certified by FSC and to use recycled content for 25% of its products company-wide. This does not guarantee that Kimberly- Clark will in fact increase recycled content in any of its at-home products, most of which do not currently contain any recycled content at all.

So kudo’s for the baby step, seems about time they took one- but do I smell some “Green washing” here? Many competing at-home tissue products, found on the same shelf as Cottonelle and Kleenex have already found pathways to success while incorporating high levels of recycled content, which alas has these competitors’ giant steps ahead of Kimberly Clark on the sustainability path.

FYI- most sustainable tissue products are the ones with the highest possible levels of post consumer recycled content. Recently Scott has taken steps with their Scott’s Naturals Line that offers a 40% recycled fiber in it’s at-home offering. While it is quite the scratchy endeavor, I am convinced these products can only improve and the amount of tree's saved by the use of 1 roll of paper is staggering- If every household in the United States replaced just one roll of virgin fiber toilet paper (500 sheets) with 100% recycled ones, we could save 423,900 trees in a year!

Marcal takes it one step further with 100% premium recycled paper products that are hypoallergenic, virtually lint free, and whitened without chlorine bleaching.

Yes we are aware of Green Forest and Seventh Generation and other companies- but they started their product lifecycle with sustainability in mind, whereas Kimberly Clark, Marcal and Scott have had to adopt a “Green” approach, and re-engineer their product offering- much harder to accomplish.

For a list of paper products that utilize recycled content check out this link:

http://www.nrdc.org/land/forests/gtissue.asp

I have recently been reading Adam Werbach’s Strategy for Sustainability, which has incited me to explore the meaning of Sustainability. In the introduction he mentions how the word Sustainability has become widely used in reference to environmental concerns, and how it is sadly getting over used.

The Webster Dictionary defines sustainable as: of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged. If you google the word you will receive 29 million responses and as I perused the first few pages of offerings most are relative to environmental and green references- from a B-B or B-C perspective.

However what is more troubling is the many forms this word is taking on beyond the actual meaning/reference in a quasi form of “Green washing” which is defined as expressions of environmentalist concerns especially as a cover for products, policies, or activities.

We have all seen examples of this sort of thing, as a company touts their “Green Eco Friendly” line, yet their business operates as anything but Green, and they don’t even take the proper steps to improve their practices.

However, as we see “green and sustainable” becoming more a part of our everyday consumer and business language, will it water down the actions needed to help companies/ people be truly sustainable?

Adam identifies 4 coequal components of true sustainability which are:

Social- Actions and conditions that affect all members of society

Economic- Actions that effect how people and business meet their economic needs – securing water, etc

Environmental- actions and conditions that affect the earth’s ecology- preservation of natural resources

Cultural- Actions through which communities manifest their identity and cultivate tradition from generation to generation.

His litmus test is if the plan etc fulfills theses components then it is a “true” sustainable offering/effort. It is sad that we have to look behind the “Green” curtain to make sure it is compliant, however as an optimist- is taking one “Green” step forward, (sans the green washing) maybe with recycling etc still making an effort, and maybe once an organization or person takes this first “Green Step” subsequent steps will follow- and lead them down the path towards true sustainability? Time will tell……