US pharmacy giant making wrong choice for the Boreal Forest

Inhale, exhale. The Boreal Forest impacts every breath you take.

Spanning North America, Russia, Japan and Scandinavia, the Boreal is the world’s largest carbon absorbing ecosystem, purifying the air you breathe and keeping the climate stable.

The Boreal is also home to incredible biodiversity – from woodland caribou in Canada to the Siberian tiger in Russia. And it is the traditional territory of many First Nations and Indigenous Peoples.

But despite its importance to people and the planet, it goes largely unprotected.

What’s happening to the Boreal Forest?

The Boreal Forest faces many threats: from climate change-fueled forest fires to oil development. But in Canada, one force is cutting out the heart of the forest: destructive logging.

A major player in this forest destruction is Resolute Forest Products – a pulp, paper and lumber company that’s turning the endangered Boreal forest into products like throwaway flyers.

For years, Resolute has been needlessly destroying critical habitat of the endangered woodland caribou and at times logging in Indigenous Peoples’ territories without their consent. Right now, Resolute is even suing Greenpeace Canada and staff for C$7,000,000 to stop them from telling you about what the company is doing in the Boreal forest.

The good news is there’s something we can do for the Boreal that can change Resolute’s destructive practices: speak up.  

Speaking up for the Boreal Forest matters

The voices of consumers are powerful in convincing companies to take their impact on forests seriously.

Because of public outcry, large companies like Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble and Hewlett-Packard have adopted policies that minimize their impact on endangered forests.

And these changes put pressure on suppliers like Resolute. Just this year, Post-It Note company 3M committed to a forest-friendly paper policy and then told Resolute – one of its paper suppliers – to shape up or lose business. We continue to monitor the situation and will ensure 3M lives up to this element of its new policy soon. But to make big changes for the Boreal Forest, we need even more large companies to commit to buying paper that isn’t connected with forest destruction and demand better from suppliers like Resolute.

That’s why Greenpeace USA and Greenpeace Canada are challenging another major Resolute customer to step up and adopt a meaningful paper policy.

Rite Aid – the third-largest drugstore chain in the United States – has been making the wrong choice for forests by not managing where its paper comes from. The millions of pounds of paper it purchases for flyers and advertisements each year could be connected to destruction of the Canadian Boreal Forest.  

And despite repeated outreach to Rite Aid back in April, the company continues toignore this serious problem.

Take action

The Boreal Forest matters to all of us. That’s why all of us need to tell Rite Aid to do the right thing for forests. Write a message to Rite Aid on Facebook, or tweet at the company. Let Rite Aid know that there’s no excuse for ignoring what the best science tells us: that the Canadian Boreal Forest is at risk and Rite Aid’s paper supplier, Resolute, is making a bad situation worse.

When we convince companies like Rite Aid to act responsibly, we move one step closer to a world where the Boreal Forest is protected and managed responsibly – a world without deforestation and forest degradation.

Amy Moas is a Senior Forests Campaigner at Greenpeace USA