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And on a related note, the Center for a New American Dream is actively pushing a Do Not Junk Mail campaign: www.newdream.org On Feb 27, 2007, at 12:32 PM, Gary Liss wrote: > This is a great article highlighting an opportunity for Zero Waste > communities to get involved. If you're interested in helping with > the campaign to get magazines to really go Green, contact: > Coop America Magazine Paper Project, go to: http:// > www.coopamerica.org/programs/woodwise/publishers/magazines/ > index.cfm or contact Frank Locantore, WoodWise Program Director, > 1612 K St NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20006, (800) 58-GREEN, > <frank@no.address> > Susan Kinsella, Executive Director, Conservatree, Phone - > 415/561-6526, E-mail Fax - 509/756-6987, susan@no.address, > skype - susanekinsella, http://www.conservatree.org > They can highlight how you could make a difference with this campaign. > > Gary > >> From: "Eric Lombardi" <eric@no.address> >> To: "'Greenyes'" <GreenYes@no.address> >> Subject: [GreenYes] FW: [PaperNet] Not-so-green magazines >> Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 13:00:37 -0700 >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: papernetwork@no.address >> [ mailto:papernetwork@no.address] >> On Behalf Of Conrad MacKerron >> Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 4:55 PM >> To: papernetwork@no.address >> Subject: [PaperNet] Not-so-green magazines >> >> Not-so-green magazines >> Some glossies cover the environment, but cover up their own >> practices, says >> Fortune's Marc Gunther. >> >> By Marc Gunther, Fortune senior writer >> February 22 2007: 9:34 AM EST >> >> http://money.cnn.com/2007/02/21/magazines/fortune/ >> pluggedin_Gunther_greenmags.fortune/index.htm? >> section=money_topstories >> >> NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The New Yorker won awards for its stories about >> climate change and Vanity Fair publishes a "green" issue, but just >> try to >> find parent company Conde Nast's environmental policy. You can't. >> >> Newsweek ran a cover on "The Greening of America," but its owner, The >> Washington Post Co., won't identify the magazine's paper suppliers >> or say >> where its paper comes from. Maybe The Post's Bob Woodward should >> investigate. >> >> As for Hearst, which publishes Oprah's magazine and Cosmopolitan, the >> privately held firm is developing an environmental policy to >> govern its >> paper buying. But the company won't provide details. >> >> "The magazine industry's hypocrisy runs deep," asserts Todd Paglia, >> executive director of Forest Ethics, an environmental group that >> protects >> forests by holding companies accountable for their paper buying. >> >> "Conde Nast," Paglia goes on, "is seemingly unaware of the >> strangeness of >> doing a high-profile series in The New Yorker on climate change, >> while >> exacerbating the problem by using environmentally irresponsible >> paper." >> Conde Nast did not return emails or calls seeking comment. >> >> The reluctance of publishers to talk about their environmental impact >> suggests that they aren't paying attention - or that they want to >> avoid it. >> That makes a project undertaken by a group of paper users - >> including the >> Time Inc. division of Time Warner (Charts), the German publisher Axel >> Springer, Random House UK, which is a unit of Bertelsmann, and >> packaging >> firm Tetra Pak - all the more unusual. >> >> Those companies are all big customers of Stora Enso (Charts), a >> Finnish-Swedish paper, packaging and forest products giant based >> in London. >> With Stora Enso, they formed a partnership to track their supply >> chain into >> the heart of Russia's forests to try to insure that it is >> harvested in a >> sustainable way. >> >> Ordinarily, I try not to write about Time Inc., which publishes >> Fortune and >> CNNMoney.com. This story is an exception because the company's >> environmental >> practices deserve recognition. >> >> Time Inc. joined with Nike (Charts), Staples (Charts), Hewlett >> Packard >> (Charts) and the nonprofit group Metafore in 2003 to form the >> Paper Working >> Group to promote environmentally preferable paper. It worked with >> environmental groups to measure its greenhouse gas emissions, and set >> reduction targets. It discloses its paper suppliers and bought >> about 70 >> percent of its paper from sources certified as sustainable during >> 2006, up >> from 25 percent four years earlier. >> >> As the world's largest magazine publisher, Time Inc. acted partly >> to avoid >> becoming a target. (In 1994, Greenpeace activists protested the >> company's >> forestry practices by climbing the Time & Life Building in New >> York.) But >> its work also has been driven by the passion of David Refkin, a >> Bronx-born >> accountant who joined the company in 1982, took charge of its >> paper buying >> in the late 1980s and is now its director of sustainable development. >> >> Cleaning up the supply chain >> Refkin, 49, has tracked the company's paper to the woods of Maine, >> Wisconsin >> and Michigan, in an effort to promote sustainable forestry. "I >> once went to >> Iron Mountain, Mich., to have breakfast with 375 loggers," he >> says. "They >> wanted to have me for breakfast." >> >> Over the years, he has become an environmentalist. He is the board >> president >> of a nonprofit called the National Recycling Coalition and even >> nudged a >> friend who operates a Vermont ski resort to buy electricity from >> wind. "If >> you're in a business that depends on the weather," he reasons, >> "you ought to >> buy green power." >> >> Refkin turned his attention to Russia because Stora Enso, a Time Inc. >> supplier, imports wood from Russia. The partners in a project >> called "From >> Russia With Transparency" identified two logging companies in >> Russia, and >> worked with them to improve their environmental practices so that >> they can >> obtain certification from the Forest Stewardship Council, an >> independent >> body. (One company, Russkiy Les, expects to be certified this >> year.) The >> group also tackled worker safety and corruption, both serious >> issues in >> Russia. >> >> Americans, Germans, Brits, Finns, Swedes and Russians collaborated >> on the >> project. "How many wars have been fought between those countries?" >> Refkin >> mused. "The culture challenges were enormous." The American and >> European >> buyers had to be careful not to push around the Russian suppliers. >> >> Two nonprofit groups, Transparency International and the Karelian >> Research >> Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, monitored the project. >> A detailed >> report on the project, as well as a video, can be found at >> www.tikhvinproject.ru/. >> >> Why should publishers go to the trouble of cleaning up their >> supply chain? >> Florian Nehm, sustainability officer for Axel Springer, which >> publishes >> magazines and newspapers, said companies should be concerned not >> just about >> the visible quality of paper but its "invisible" quality as well - >> its >> environmental and social impact. >> >> "There are 3,000 journalists working for Axel Springer," Nehm >> says. "They >> criticize everything and everyone, and they can only do that with >> credibility if the company that they work for has adequate >> standards of its >> own." >> >> That should be a wake-up call to other publishers. Those who ignore >> environmental issues may be putting their reputations at risk. >> >> Publishers will be happy to hear that Forest Ethics - which ran a >> successful >> campaign against the Victoria's Secret catalog and its parent >> company, >> Limited Brands (Charts), last year - says it will remain focused on >> catalogs, not magazines, for now. But Paglia says the group >> intends to look >> at magazines and their paper, perhaps as soon as next year. >> >> ___________________ >> >> >> >> >> Conrad MacKerron >> Director, Corporate Social Responsibility Program >> As You Sow Foundation >> 311 California St., San Francisco, CA 94104 >> Phone: 415-391-3212, ext. 31 >> Web: www.asyousow.org >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Gary Liss >> 916-652-7850 >> Fax: 916-652-0485 >> www.garyliss.com >> >> David Jaber Natural Logic 510-248-4941 djaber@no.address ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ See what's new at our web site: http://www.natlogic.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "GreenYes" group. 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