AbitibiBowater needs to green its operations to survive

We’re calling on AbitibiBowater to finally turn itself into a company that practices ecologically sustainable forestry. Such a plan could save the company, sustain thousands of forestry jobs and help forest communities.

One of the company’s biggest problems is that up to now it has ignored the market message that increasingly its customers want green products. It cannot ignore this changing business climate any longer.

Customers going greener

More and more of AbitibiBowater’s present and prospective customers are adopting green purchasing policies. They demand forest products that are produced in an environmentally responsible manner.

AbitibiBowater’s big customers have ended their contracts and many others are reducing purchases. Many of these companies are adopting green purchasing policies. They want Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified products sourced from non controversial areas. AbitibiBowater can’t deliver these products.

Industry heavyweights RONA, Transcontinental, Hachette UK and Rogers have implemented greener purchasing policies and in the last year alone. The German-based newspaper publisher Dumont and Holtzbrink have reduced their purchase of paper from AbitibiBowater. Same with giant US-based Office Depot and Quebec-based SFK Pulp.

Going green in order to survive

To retain customers and capture new emerging green markets, AbitibiBowater must make sustainable forestry and protection of intact forests priorities during its reorganization.

1. Establish responsible forest management by seeking FSC certification in all forest tenures and  mills.
2. Suspend logging in all critical woodland caribou habitat and avoid controversy.
3. Shift product lines to increase production of papers with high recycled fibre contents.

AbitibiBowater must develop policies that will end its destructive logging and take immediate steps to conserve Canada’s Boreal Forest.

We think it is the only responsible way for AbitibiBowater to survive.

Greenpeace’s role

For the past six years, Greenpeace has been in touch with representatives of AbitibiBowater, asking the company to stop destroying the last intact Boreal forests of Canada.

We’ve strongly advised them to certify their forestry practices through the FSC. Still, the company has made little or no progress to seek certification or to conserve intact forests.

AbitibiBowater controls the largest areas of public forest land in Québec and Ontario, and therefore has an important duty to preserve the remaining intact stands.

AbitibiBowater at a glance

• One of the worst logging companies in terms of protecting forests
• Less than 3 per cent of the forest land where AbitibiBowater holds a permit is protected in Quebec, less than 6 per cent is protected in Ontario.
• Over 70 per cent of the company’s logging territory in Québec and Ontario is fragmented.
• Exploits areas that are especially important for the survival of species with large ranges such as the woodland caribou, a species classified as vulnerable in Québec and threatened in Canada.
• Sells nearly 10.1 million tonnes of newsprint, coated and uncoated paper, and paper pulp every year.

Recent polling results*

• More than three quarters of Canadians agree, even with the current economic downturn, that the environment is as important as the economy.
• Seven out of ten Canadians feel that regardless of the current economic situation, businesses have a responsibility to show leadership on both the health of the environment and the health of our economy.
• 76 per cent of Canadians feel the pulp and paper industry is unsustainable.

* Source: 
Trend report 2009, Environmental leadership in the paper supply chain, Markets Initiative, 2009.