Everything we've ever done has been impossible

Because protecting forests is everyone’s business.

ForestEthics Because protecting forests is everyone’s business.

Everything we’ve ever done has been impossible.

Seven Case Studies in Transformation

impossible.

LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

electricity

Quick reality check: human flight

Before you attempt the impossible, you might want to make sure what you’re doing is actually worthwhile.

Impossibility, alone, is not much of a criteria. Look no further than the Guinness Book of Records. Cycling backwards nearly 40 miles while playing violin? Eating 26 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes?

We may have been better off if these things were still considered “impossible”.

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Doing the impossible to save forests?

That’s a whole different question. Why bother? I could go on forever, but here are my top five reasons: 1. F orests save our lives. Half of our medications, from digoxin for the heart, to taxol for cancer, come from the plant kingdom. Our bodies recognize and are healed by plant remedies. Let’s keep our medicine cabinet healthy.

2. Forests create the air that we breathe. In fact, that breath that you just took? Forests and oceans conspired to make it. Each tree produces enough oxygen for one human to breathe. What we breathe in, they breathe out. Is that a beautiful thing or what?

3. Forests give us our water. Forests help purify and store nearly two-thirds of the US water supply. The next time you are really thirsty, drink deeply – and think of the forest.

4. C limate change simply can’t be tackled without a major assist from forests. In terms of battling climate change, forests are tough to beat:

they just need to be allowed to do what they do so well – which in addition to everything else, is absorbing and storing massive amounts of carbon. Without them we are sunk—with them we have a fighting chance of overcoming one of the biggest challenges of our time.

5. W e are even more linked to forests than you think. There are things about forests that just make sense even if we don’t fully understand them yet. If you map the survival of languages and healthy forests, the overlap is stunning. Trees make people feel calm, less anxious. Five minutes doing something in nature can boost your mental health. Why? There’s science to all of this but let’s keep it simple. Forests are our natural cathedrals.

They are gorgeous. They put us in touch with a feeling that there is something larger than ourselves—and that’s very, very good for us.

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LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

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For all these reasons and many more, when it comes to protecting forests, even when everyone else thinks it’s impossible, we’ll be there. Be there with us. Winning is great—winning when it’s impossible is even better.

For the Forests,

Todd Paglia 4

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Thousands gather at Clayoquot Sound (British Columbia) to protest old-growth logging. Massive arrests ensue.

There is an island.

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SAVE OLD GROW TH

Most of it is logged.

One corner still has river valleys filled with old growth forests.

This last corner is being logged.

10,000 protestors come to stop the logging; 1,000 people are arrested; Celebrities and rock bands show up; A media maelstrom ensues.

And nothing changes.

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How do you make the impossible possible?

How do you stop the logging?

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You follow the money.

Toilet paper. Phone books. Two by fours. All made by big companies with big-brand reputations at stake. And when the customers of those big-brand companies find out that the toilet paper they just flushed came from a 1,000-yearold tree? Hoo boy.

Suddenly, the big logging company, MacMillan Bloedel, isn’t dealing with a bunch of unhappy treehuggers they could care less about. Oh no. They’re dealing with a bunch of unhappy big-brand companies who just happen to be their largest customers.

And they’re facing the brainchild of some of the biggest names in environmental protection who got together to create a new little project, which eventually became ForestEthics. Its sole purpose was to track the lumber MacMillan Bloedel produced, find the buyers, and hold them accountable.

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A secluded bay in Clayoquot Sound.

The results were stunning. We (then known as the Clayoquot Rainforest Coalition) came on like a precision hammer, discovering which companies were buying products made from the destruction of the forest, and letting the whole world know what was happening.

Major US companies were shocked to learn they were connected to the destruction, and demanded answers—and changes— from their paper or wood suppliers. Soon, MacMillan Bloedel was really feeling the pinch, claiming that we were not only hurting their bottom line, but were ruining their reputational capital. Less than 36 months after the first protest in front of a US company’s store, the logging company shut down its logging camp in Clayoquot. They then offered to work jointly with local First Nations to come up with an environmentally

responsible logging solution. It vowed not to log intact valleys and called for light-touch sustainable logging in others.

Eventually, all ownership of the new sustainable logging operation was transferred to the local First Nation, which still runs it today. MacMillan Bloedel proved that environmental and economic success could go hand in hand; logging in Clayoquot Sound has decreased to a fraction of what was once allowed. And the highly effective ‘markets campaign’ was born.

Today, ForestEthics continues to lead on the cutting-edge of markets campaigns, pushing harder for more protection of forests and wild places, and transforming the environmental practices of some of the biggest names in corporate America.

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Advertisement in USA Today

There’s a splashy environmental campaign.

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TR ANSFORM THE OFFICE SUPPLY INDUSTRY

Against a big-name company.

Lots of media, hundreds of protests, intense negotiations, and more than a bit of tension.

It’s been going on for two years.

And you’re running it.

The campaign is heading toward a groundbreaking resolution that will impact forests across the continent and beyond.

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Can you and the “target company” actually work together?

Doesn’t sound too easy...

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But what if you never treated them like an enemy?

It’s 2003, and you’ve been putting this whole markets-based campaigning thing to the test: you’ve been trying to transform the kind of paper that office supply giant Staples sells. (When you started your campaign, the overall recycled content of Staples’ paper was less than 3%, on par with the unfortunate industry standard.)

Your annual budget is smaller than the weekly revenue of a single Staples store. But, apparently, you’re a glutton for punishment because that doesn’t dissuade you for a moment.

For two years, you organize hundreds of protests outside of Staples stores. You get rock-legend R.E.M. to create a public service announcement for you. You fly a banner around Staples’ hometown Fenway Park. Then you interrupt their annual shareholder meeting by inviting people whose lives are being impacted by dirty and unsustainable logging practices to speak about their experiences. The media goes wild for your high-profile stunts and effective strategies.

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TR ANSFORM THE OFFICE SUPPLY INDUSTRY

Storefront protests, like this one in San Francisco, pressured the office supply giant to source its paper more responsibly.

Staples, who didn’t return your calls and letters for months, is feeling the heat. You’ve been talking with them behind the scenes, and it’s, well, tense. It’s not like they’re lobbing heavy objects at you. But is it the start of a beautiful friendship? Forget it.

Right from the start, we treated Staples executives like the allies we wanted them to be.

We worked to understand the challenges they were facing as a company. We knew we could make headway if we gave them a reason that would help their bottom line.

We showed them how doing the right thing for the environment could give them a huge advantage over competitors—and we gave them achievable, practical ways to make it happen. When they finally agreed, we gave them the recognition they deserved; namely, the ad you see on the previous page, which ran in USA Today and still hangs on the wall of their corporate headquarters’ cafeteria. Talk about a happy ending: critical forests and caribou

habitat were protected; a new industry standard of 30% post-consumer recycled paper was set; and other major office supply companies scrambled to keep up. Independent studies found that recycled paper mills in the US were operating at record capacity, and attributed that directly to our work with Staples and other office supply leaders.

Best of all though, Staples has continued to be one of our most valuable allies over the past 10 years, helping us secure, among other things, the largest conservation agreement in North America.

Rock legends REM film a public service announcement for our campaign.

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Advertisement in The New York Times , 2005

Catalogs.

They come from trees.

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RE VOLUTIONIZE THE C ATALOG INDUSTRY

Sometimes from trees growing in endangered caribou habitat.

One of the biggest brands in the US is mailing out one million per day. Everyday.

They won’t stop.

You have $10,000 to take on their multi-million dollar brand and get them to change their ways.

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How do you revolutionize the catalog industry, aside from a wing and a prayer?

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You turn that $10,000 into media attention worth millions of dollars.

And that’s only half of the story. It’s 2005, and because of you, the leaders of the office supply industry have jumped on the environmentally responsible paper bandwagon. Recycled pulp mills are operating at record-high capacity due to demand from Office Depot and Staples. Because of your work, the companies adopted environmental policies for their paper for the first time. So what’s next?

Catalogs. Once again, you follow the money and find that Victoria’s Secret, one of the world’s largest brands, is buying those trees so they can send out one million catalogs every single day.

With $10,000, a model from Craigslist, a volunteer photographer, and a rented chainsaw, you run the advertisement pictured in the previous spread. Only about four times as large, and in The New York Times. Full page.

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RE VOLUTIONIZE THE C ATALOG INDUSTRY

A high-profile protest at a Victoria’s Secret flagship store on Union Square in San Francisco.

The ad didn’t just catch the eye of Times readers—it also got the attention of other news outlets. Like USA Today, who wrote a story that was picked up by papers across the country. Like the Today Show, who interviewed Todd Paglia, Executive Director of ForestEthics. That’s the kind of exposure money can’t buy. Well, money could buy that kind of exposure—but according to a leading media analyst, it would take millions of dollars, not $10,000.

And it definitely had an impact. Whereas Victoria’s Secret had been ignoring our calls for nearly a year, the day that ad ran, you’d better believe we heard from them. Because just like every other big-name brand, their parent company Limited Brands had spent a lot of money on their image—and they couldn’t afford to have it associated with forest destruction.

After two and half years of dogged and relentless campaigning—more than 600 protests, hundreds of media stories, and some really fun stunts—Victoria’s Secret and Limited Brands went the same way as Staples and Office Depot. They adopted their first-ever sustainability

policy for their paper , and became one of our strongest allies. Suddenly the sweeping changes to corporate environmental polices, which once seemed impossible, weren’t just possible: they were inevitable.

When we started our Victoria’s Secret campaign, their catalog paper contained less than 3% recycled content. Plus, there wasn’t a supplier in the world who could fulfill our demand that they use environmentally responsible paper. It literally wasn’t possible. Behind the scenes, we worked with them day in and day out to help transform the type of paper that was being made for catalogs, so that it was possible to do better.

Today, some of the biggest names in the catalog industry, like Limited Brands (parent company of Victoria’s Secret) and Williams-Sonoma, source from responsibly managed forests that are not endangered.

The catalog industry’s environmental practices have been completely transformed. And it all started with $10,000 and the notion that it really was possible.

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There are caribou.

There are mountains.

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SAVE THE C ARIBOU

There are mountain caribou.

They are ungulates.

Go ahead – say it again: UN – GU —LATES. Love that word.

The caribou are endangered.

You will NEVER see one. (Most likely.)

You outgrew your superhero cape years ago, so what’s your next best option?

They are elusive, and majestic, and beautiful, and dependent on old growth forests to live.

You have one staff person, a budget in the red,

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and you must save them.

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You persuade 600 new corporate allies to care about the caribou too.

So say your name is Candace.

You’re the one ForestEthics staff member who just happens to live in Nelson, British Columbia, which just happens to be near the old-growth forest that mountain caribou need to survive.

And you’ve decided that someone needs to save the mountain caribou, and even though your tiny budget is in the red…that someone might as well be you.

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SAVE THE C ARIBOU

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Many customers don’t want to purchase products that come from endangered forests.

You’ve got tons of energy and determination.

And you’ve just come off one of the most successful environmental campaigns of all time—the effort to save British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest. You know how to do this stuff. You block logging roads, you attend rallies, you come up with crazy caribou costumes and you get people to shout “Save Santa’s reindeer!”

But just like the founders of ForestEthics themselves, you k now that logging companies and big governments aren’t persuaded by caribou-costume wearing environmentalists. What you need is some of the largest companies in the world on your side.

companies like Aveda, Norm Thompson Outfitters and Victoria’s Secret—some of which have become ForestEthics’ biggest allies, and others you’ve never communicated with before—on the threat that mountain caribou face. You organize protests, create reports, and get thousands of citizens to write to the government of British Columbia.

Fast forward a few years and you’ve got a total of 600 businesses on your side. Fast forward a few more years and you’ve convinced the BC government to protect five million acres of mountain caribou habitat— an area six and a half times the size of Yosemite. Impossible achieved.

In true ForestEthics-fashion, you channel all of your considerable energy into educating 20

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Logging. It’s not that you like it.

Here’s the thing you just can’t get around when it comes to logging:

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DE VELOP SUSTAINABLE LOGGING

Kevin Gladstone of the Heiltsuk First Nation of BC Great Bear Rainforest sands driftwood logs into beautiful toys.

It creates jobs.

And as much as you hate it, you know that unsustainable logging could support communities, especially your First Nation allies on the British Columbia coast, all of whom need jobs.

So what do you do?

You can’t support logging if it means losing some of the most ecologically vital old-growth in the world.

Quite a bind. You’re going to need to pull a very big rabbit out of your hat.

And you can’t stop logging if your allies need it for jobs to support themselves.

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But you have an idea.

What about instead of cutting lots of trees to make relatively inexpensive things, like lumber or toilet paper, you pioneer an approach to logging, which allows for it on a limited basis, in a way that supports the long term health of the ecosystem.

And, what if you and your community learned how to make something that gave you much more value for every tree logged?

What if it was something you could make with your own hands?

Say, bath products or artisanal toys?

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DE VELOP SUSTAINABLE LOGGING

Hand-crafted toys created by local First Nation youth provide jobs for their communities.

With our partners, ForestEthics helped secure a $120 million Coast Opportunities Fund reserved for First Nations’ new economic ventures. And in 2011, Coastal First Nations entered an agreement with a boutique essential oil shop to manufacture an exclusive line of bath products. The products used the essential oils from hemlock, spruce, and cedar tree branches in the Great Bear Rainforest—an extraction process we helped shepherd for more than three years. The first batch of oils sold for a price that’s on par with the highest end of essential oils in the international market, showing that a small amount of wood can turn into some very big ventures.

Solutions that are both environmentally and economically sound: Imagine the possibilities.

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There’s a cute leafy logo that’s tricking consumers into thinking that they’re buying products that are ‘good for forests’.

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STOP GREENWASH IN ITS TR ACKS

You don’t like it.

And you’ve watched as many people have tried to expose the phony for what it really is.

But to no avail.

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© 2006 JERRY AND MARCY MONKMAN/ECOPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) label

How do you expose the deception of an appealing, well-publicized, totally phony seal of approval?

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For years, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative has given ‘green credibility’ to products that are really anything but green.

Many people tried to expose the SFI’s deceptions and shortcomings.

But the label kept spreading, thanks in large part to a massive publicity budget—and to the backing of the biggest names in the logging industry.

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STOP GREENWASH IN ITS TR ACKS

The public was not equipped to distinguish between green and greenwash.

So we asked ourselves: if companies knew that products containing this misleading label were causing destruction to forests, wouldn’t they want to drop the label?

Turns out the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.

In just 18 months, we convinced 21 major brands to steer away from the phony SFI certification program.

In the world of consumer choice, certification is a big deal. When you buy certified organic food, you know that what you’re eating meets a certain standard. The same goes for the label ‘fair trade’. But some labels, like the ‘smart choice’ icon slapped on the Fruit Loops box, smell a little fishy. Smart choice, really?

The same goes for the SFI. Behind its clever marketing, the SFI is really an industrydesigned, industry-funded label. It threatens our forests, communities, fresh water, and wildlife, while preying on the good intent of the environmentally-minded consumer.

Estimated by some to be valued at more than $500 billion worldwide, the market for green products is increasingly lucrative, which is why it’s ever more important to expose misleading labels like the SFI. Already, we’ve convinced 21 major brands, like AT&T, Sprint, and Energizer, to stop using the SFI label. It’s a pretty simple choice: either associate themselves with a trade association masquerading as an independent non-profit, or steer clear of the brand-risk that comes from misleading consumers.

Outwitting a marketing machine like SFI at its own game is a tall order. But by convincing major companies to drop its greenwash label, we’re serving up some serious results. That’s a good thing for our forests, wildlife, and our two-legged friends and family.

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Apply your paper strategy to… oil?

Impossible.

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CLEAN UP THE OIL INDUSTRY

A new threat arrives on the scene.

And it’s a big one: tar sands oil.

Some of the dirtiest on Earth.

Underneath the Boreal forest that you’ve been protecting lies the ‘tar sands’, raw material for making some of the most health-threatening and difficult-to-produce oil in the world, but

The scale of the destruction is daunting.

And so is your campaign.

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DAVID DODGE, THE PEMBINA INSTITUTE

incredibly lucrative for Big Oil.

Can you stop Big Oil’s destructive plans?

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When you’re on the front page of newspapers like the LA Times because the Canadian government is attacking you for threatening its tar sands profits, you know you’re doing more than affecting Big Oil. You’re casting an international spotlight on the battle between a clean energy future and the destructive habits of dirty oil — a battle that’s being played out writ large in Canada, the US’s number one source of foreign oil.

Attempting to shift the practices of the oil industry is audacious.

Very audacious. But a few years ago, when we became aware of the emerging ecological disaster occurring in Canada’s tar sands, we knew we had to try.

Current plans for the tar sands directly threaten an area of the Boreal forest the size of Maine. And its dirty, excessive-globalwarming-polluting brand of energy stands to impact far more than the forest it lies beneath. US communities are suffering health problems because of the more intense air pollution spewed by refineries processing tar sands. And experts in Canada argue that developing the tar sands could be a game changer for our climate.

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CLEAN UP THE OIL INDUSTRY

Toxic tar sands tailing ponds in Fort McMurray, Alberta.

Where do you begin to tackle an issue of this size? Well, we followed the money. The industry claimed it was impossible to track tar sands to the end consumer, but our map identifying which US refineries process tar sands proved them wrong. We used that map to show US companies where fuel from tar sands refineries comes from in the US. Then we persuaded them to use their buying power against those refineries. As of Summer 2012, 16 companies, including Walgreens and Whole Foods, have publicly confirmed action to move away from fuel that comes from refineries using tar sands.

Our campaign is proving so threatening to the oil industry that the Canadian government, with its cozy ties to Big Oil, has described ForestEthics as an “enemy of the state”. But it’s not just our work transforming corporate practices that’s earned us that moniker.

We’ve mobilized thousands of Canadians to stand up against a proposed pipeline by oil giant Enbridge Corporation. The pipeline would transport tar sands from Alberta, Canada to a proposed port in the renowned

Great Bear Rainforest, where it would be shipped by supertankers to far-reaching corners of the globe.

There are a lot of problems with that sentence. First, raw tar sands material is excessively corrosive, making pipelines more susceptible to leaks. Second, there has been an unofficial moratorium on tanker traffic on Canada’s western coast for decades. And for good reason—its pristine, life-giving waters are stunning but perilous for tankers. Then, there’s the issue of Enbridge’s appalling track record, including over 600 leaks and the US’s most costly onshore pipeline disaster ever, which is still not cleaned up.

“I know there’ll be an accident, no ifs about it,” said Sammy Robinson, Haisla First Nation Elder and carver, from BC’s North Coast.

We think spills are something that happens with milk and apple juice, and can be cleaned up with a sponge. Let’s start calling these ‘spills’ by their real name: disasters.

Our plan is to stop the Enbridge pipeline before it even starts.

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ForestEthics Because protecting forests is everyone’s business.

Staff & Board

ForestEthics Because protecting forests is everyone’s business.

To view our most recent

SENIOR MANAGEMENT TEAM Todd Paglia, J.D., L.L.M.

annual report, visit:

Executive Director

Kristi Chester Vance Deputy Director

www.forestethics.org/annual-reports

Aaron Sanger Director, US Campaigns

Matt Westendorf Chief Operating Officer

BOARD

STAFF Jim Ace

Jason Paglia

Stop SFI Greenwash Campaigner

Executive Assistant

Jolan Bailey

Claire Richards

Canadian Outreach Coordinator

Development Associate

Matt Brown

Claire Rosenfeld

Director of Communications

Online Communications Coordinator

Stephen Danner

Melyssa Rubino

Senior Development Officer

Campaign and Administrative Associate

Max Fleisher

Rangan Sanguanchaiyakit

Database and Office Administrator

Accountant

Adam Gaya

Nikki Skuce

Organizer, US Campaigns

Senior Energy Campaigner

Kayla Henson

Samantha Stanley

Campaign and Administrative Associate

Online Specialist

Mary Humphries

Geeta Tate

Jason Cory Mogus, Chair Bridgitte Maria Alomes, Vice-Chair Nancy D. Bradshaw, Secretary-Treasurer

Grant Writer

Valerie Langer

Karen Tam Wu

ForestEthics Advocacy Association

Senior Conservation Campaigner

Clayton Ruby, Chair Candace Christine Batycki, Vice-Chair Karen Mary Mahon, Secretary-Treasurer Tzeporah Berman

Paras Upadhyay Senior Accountant

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Director of Development Director of BC Forests Campaign

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Andrea Leebron Clay, Chair Kevin Johnson, President James Clay, Treasurer Michael Uehara, Secretary Marika Holmgren Stuart Sender Anne Kroeker angel Kyodo williams Neal Gorenflo

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•••

••• Advocacy • Solutions • Action www.ForestEthics.org

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San Francisco One Haight Street San Francisco, CA 94102 415.863.4563

Bellingham 1329 North State Street, Ste 302 Bellingham, WA 98225 360.734.2951

ForestEthics Advocacy Association 163 West Hastings Street, Suite 350 Vancouver, B.C. V6B 1H5 604.331.6201 www.ForestEthicsAdvocacy.org

ForestEthics Solutions Society 614-207 West Hastings Vancouver, BC V6B 1H7 604.331.6201 www.ForestEthicsSolutions.org