Five Year, $2.2 Million Effort Funds New Forest & Biodiversity Conservation Alliance
Office Depot, (NYSE: ODP) announced today a five-year, $2.2 million strategy to develop the information, standards and tools needed to advance the companys forest and biodiversity conservation policies. The project work is expected to help reduce the environmental footprint of the companys forest and paper product suppliers while contributing to global biodiversity conservation.
Office Depot is collaborating with NatureServe, Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy, three of the worlds most respected science-driven conservation organizations to form the Forest & Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, to address forest and biodiversity conservation issues in the supply chain.
Said Bruce Nelson, Office Depot CEO, "We are perfectly clear on the values we want to promote and advance, the types of forests we want our suppliers to avoid, and the forest practices we will and will not accept. The activities of this alliance will assist forest managers in their efforts to address those values, and provide Office Depot with the information and tools we need to incorporate conservation science into our procurement decisions.
Alliance goals are reflected in a new Forest & Biodiversity Conservation section of Office Depots Environmental Paper Procurement Policy, also released today.
The Alliance, and the integration of its objectives within Office Depots Environmental Paper Procurement Policy, is the product of more than 10 months of collaboration, during which time the conservation science organizations worked with Office Depot to:
* Identify the challenges to forest and biodiversity conservation faced by landowners, managers and Office Depots own sourcing and vendor compliance personnel; and
* Develop projects that would address these challenges, while facilitating the implementation of Office Depots policies on Rare & Vulnerable Forests and Forests Containing Exceptional Biodiversity Values.
Projects undertaken by the participating organizations will initially fall into four priority areas:
* Develop Scientific Information to Improve Forest Management: develop data to help foresters identify and manage hundreds of imperiled and at-risk forest species and natural communities, in regions such as the Pacific Northwest, the Southeastern United States and British Columbia. Funding will also help improve information systems to manage data about these species and ecosystems.
* Refine and Apply Science-based Methods for Conserving Biodiversity: methods to prioritize forest lands for biological inventory, and to identify and conserve key biodiversity areas within forest landscapes. Target landscapes are expected to include the boreal forests of Canada and the Atlantic Forest region of Brazil.
* Enhance Environmental Procurement Practices: methods and tools to incorporate conservation criteria into domestic and international sourcing decisions as well as vendor compliance processes. * Train Forest Managers and Scientists: regional workshops to train interested foresters, conservation professionals and landowners in the use of these data, methods and tools.
"Through the engagement of businesses up and down the paper supply chain, the Alliance hopes to actively influence conservation decisions made on the ground, at the forest landscape level," said Steve McCormick, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy. "We will use our expertise to help integrate scientific knowledge and leading edge biodiversity conservation planning into forest management decision-making."
While most forest and paper companies are eager to implement sound conservation practices, the scientific information, methods and tools needed for conservation priority setting, planning and implementation are not always available, consistent or understood. One goal of the project is to engage Office Depot suppliers and the forest certification community, to the greatest extent possible, in efforts leading to measurable conservation outcomes for forest species, ecological communities and landscapes.
Office Depot has already briefed key suppliers (Abitibi Consolidated, Bowater Canada, International Paper and Weyerhaeuser) and the dominant North American forest certification systems (The Canadian Standards Association, The Sustainable Forestry Board, the independent governing body of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, and The Forest Stewardship Council) to begin soliciting feedback and developing a strategy for project development.
Press Conference Call Information Office Depot, Conservation International, NatureServe and The Nature Conservancy are hosting a conference call for the media at 3:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) today. U.S. media representatives should call 800-314-7867 (confirmation 528848). International media may call 719-867-0640. A replay of the call will be available for seven days and can be accessed by calling 719-457-0820 or 888-203-1112.
http://www.conservation.org.
http://www.natureserve.org.
http://nature.org/
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