Greenpeace published last week its 2010 Boreal Marketplace Performance Review. This study evaluates 23 companies using use forest products from the Boreal Forest on their commitments and concrete actions to protect the Boreal Forest and the endangered woodland caribou.The review lists 23 companies in four performance categories. The eight criteria that were used to evaluate the performance of these customers were: action on protecting endangered forests, recycling, recycled content and reduction, preference and targets for the uptake of FSC fibre, leadership and advocacy on conservation issues and Boreal Forest protection, labeling and marketing of green products, supplier engagement, communication with conservation organizations and "greenwashing”.
Among the 23 companies there were 5 companies from the book industry, so let's see how they did on this evaluation:
In the top performance category (True Leaders) you can find Indigo Books. In the second best performance category (Positively engaged) you can find Scholastic. The third category (Some small steps) includes Pearson/Penguin and Simon & Schuster and the last performing category (Failing Our Forests) includes Harlequin.
The report doesn't include the companies' performance in each of the 8 categories, but includes some bits of information about some of them:
Other companies such as Simon & Schuster, Pearson/Penguin Books, Capital One, Scholastic and BMR Le Groupe have developed purchasing policies or are in the process of doing so. This is a commitment that Greenpeace supports, so long as the policy contains strong language, clear targets and specific timelines. Lowes, Time Inc. and Transcontinental have also started to engaged directly with their suppliers in relation to their supply, FSC certification, high conservation value forests and caribou habitat.
Several companies are making important strides in this area, and have made efforts to maintain communication with Greenpeace. Unfortunately, other companies have continually ignored our requests for information or had an initial meeting and then stopped communicating. Best Buy, Toys R Us, Harlequin, Xerox, and Boise Cascade are all companies that have NOT been communicative.
There are no details about the Indigo Books, which is the only one of this book list ranked in the top category of True Leaders, but you can learn more on their commitment and their performance (including their support of our Green Books Campaign) on Indigo's environment page.
The full report is available at http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/global/canada/report/2010/12/company-ranking-2010.pdf
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Eco-Libris: Promoting Sustainable Reading!
