Today, Kimberly-Clark Corp. is celebrating the 5th anniversary of its agreement with Greenpeace. The organization has established a framework for collaboration towards long-term solutions to protect forests worldwide. Lisa Morden, senior director of sustainability at Kimberly-Clark, said: “Over the years, we have learned that working collaboratively helps us to continuously improve. Kimberly-Clark and Greenpeace may seem like unlikely allies, but opening a dialogue showed us that we have shared values – and that a partnership could help us accelerate our progress towards common goals. Our relationship also opened the door to further collaboration with organizations including the Forest Stewardship Council who bring extensive knowledge and capabilities in the area of responsible forest management.” Richard Brooks, forest campaign coordinator at Greenpeace Canada, said:

“The unique relationship has also helped smooth the way for conversations with other corporations whose supply chains remain controversial or require changes. It has enriched Greenpeace’s approach and has been an example of the value of cooperation versus confrontation. Kimberly-Clark has shown that if the world’s largest tissue products manufacturer, whose products are used by a billion people a day, can change and lead in the field of sustainability, then virtually any other company can do the same.”

Since the partnership began, Kimberly-Clark has:

• Committed to a preference of Forest Stewardship Council-certified fiber, resulting in global growth in FSC-fiber supply through supplier partners
• Increased the use of FSC-certified fiber in Kimberly-Clark’s global tissue products by 111 percent since 2009
• Reached our Sustainability 2015 goal of sourcing 100% of our virgin wood fiber from suppliers whose forestry operations or wood-fiber procurement activities are certified by a third-party forest certification system.
• Increased our use of environmentally-preferred fiber, which includes FSC-certified fiber

The company has set further goals for the future, including: obtaining 90 percent of the fiber for its tissue products from environmentally preferred sources by 2025; as well as finding substitute sources for at least 50% of wood fiber sourced from natural forests.