CORPORATE PARTNERSHIPS
We have been a longtime supporter of GreenBlue, a non-profit that equips business with the science and resources to make products more sustainable. GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition has been instrumental in raising the bar in the science of green packaging, and has helped everyone associated with the work. They have also done groundbreaking work to improve transparency in the use of forests in North America. Forests in Focus is a unique initiative that brings forest information to organizations that use fibre for products like pulp, paper and construction materials.
GREENBLUE
We started partnering with Toby Heaps and his Corporate Knights organization almost 20 years ago. A Toronto-based media, research and financial information company. Corporate Knights is focused on promoting an economic system where prices fully incorporate social, economic and ecological costs and benefits, and market participants are clearly aware of the consequences of their actions. We are particularly excited by their renewable economy focus on availability of green investment bonds and green building standards in Canada. We are also proud to be a multiple winner of the Corporate Knights’ Best 50 Award. The Best 50 Award is judged using 21 key performance indicators that relate to an organization’s raw resource use, emissions profile, innovation, women in key positions, safety performance, and percentage of revenue from clean sources.
CORPORATE KNIGHTS
Following controversial forest campaigns in the mid-1990s, four of Paper Excellence’s coastal BC mills worked as part of the Coast Forest Conservation Initiative with Greenpeace, Stand.Earth and Sierra Club of BC. For over 20 years, The Coast Forest Conversation Initiative has been working to protect the Great Bear Rainforest through parks and protected areas and the new forest practice called Ecosystem Based Management. This work aims to bring the Great Bear Rainforest into low ecological risk while balancing well-being of local communities created by forestry employment.
COAST FOREST CONSERVATION INITIATIVE
GLOBALLY RECOGNIZED FOREST STANDARDS
We consider our forest fibre certification to all three globally recognized standards as partnerships too. These organizations challenge us to ensure transparency of our systems showing that the fibre inherent in our products comes from well-managed, sustainable forests. And we actively work with these organizations and their subcommittees to stay abreast of emerging issues relating to forests.
EXAMPLES OF MILL LEVEL PARTNERSHIPS
Located in the mid-western boreal forest of Saskatchewan and formed in 1989, Mistik Forest Management is considered a model of co-management partnerships. Mistik is jointly owned by NorSask Forest Products and Meadow Lake Mechanical Pulp Inc. In 2004, Mistik formed a public advisory group that captured forest management input from multi-agency stakeholders and developed co-management agreements with Indigenous communities in their operating area. This group provides feedback at all levels of forest planning including trappers, outfitters, traditional resource users, recreationalists, cabin owners, elders, local government, environmental groups and municipalities, on a regular basis. In addition, the Public Advisory Group and several sub-committees deliver invaluable input to annual operating plans, as well as to 20-year forest management efforts.
MISTIK FOREST MANAGEMENT
Since 2003, our pulp and paper mill in Crofton, B.C. has partnered with local First Nations and key stakeholders for the protection of the Cowichan river. This heritage river is in jeopardy due to climate change reducing precipitation in its basin. This has already caused 10 droughts in the past 20 years. The lack of water has lowered river levels and threatens the ecosystem and critical salmon and other fish populations. The River Management Group cooperatively develops and executes plans that help monitor the river and protect the fish. Typical activities include fish swim surveys, salvaging and moving of stranded fish, and working with government regulators to best manage limited water flows in times of crisis.
