Sustainability is the future, which is why Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, finds it a privilege to announce and celebrate that the Company’s enterprise division has now lent a decade of support to the Arbor Day Foundation’s reforestation program. Since 2009, the company’s enterprise division helped contribute to the planting of more than 500,000 trees in the U.S., with this year’s efforts counting toward the Arbor Day Foundation’s Time for Trees initiative, under which the Arbor Day Foundation seeks to plant 100 million trees worldwide by 2022.
“We understand the vital importance of replenishing and maintaining our forests and are committed through our philosophy of Kyosei to promoting environmental responsibility to our employees, partners, and customers,” says Shinichi Yoshida, executive vice president and general manager, Canon U.S.A. Inc. “It’s an honor to continue into our 10th year of supporting the Arbor Day Foundation, which we believe can help drive positive environmental impact in 2019 and beyond.”
The Arbor Day Foundation implements reforestation initiatives across the country to rebuild forests that are in desperate need of regrowth. Through this program, Canon contributes to the planting of one tree for every eligible imageRUNNER ADVANCE solution sold between April 1, 2019 and December 31, 2019, up to a maximum of 50,000 trees. These solutions can help users work conscientiously and allow administrators to enable settings that can help users save energy and paper.
This year, active replanting efforts are taking place all over the nation. Canon’s aid for 2019 is planned to help support reforestation efforts for the Superior National Forest (MN), habitat restoration for rare species in the Upper Altamaha Watershed (GA), and restoration of the longleaf pine ecosystem in the Big Thicket National Preserve (TX).
“Canon’s longstanding support has been invaluable to our forest revitalization efforts across the nation,” says Dan Lambe, president, Arbor Day Foundation. “The Foundation appreciates Canon’s continued corporate support to address one of the world’s most challenging environmental issues.”
Since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, Canada’s forest products industry has been hard at work delivering urgently needed, critical products that are helping Canadians and Americans weather this unprecedented crisis. Our industry is a vital part of supply chains that produce a range of in-demand goods like masks and gowns for the health care sector; packaging for food, pharmaceuticals, and online purchases; and hygiene products like tissue and toilet paper. Because of its important role, the Government of Canada designated the forest sector an essential service, to prevent shortages of key items we need and use every day. Despite the value placed on our products, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a U.S.-based lobby group, has chosen this time to release a report critical of Canada’s forest sector. Regrettably, this report misrepresents our industry and makes numerous false claims and accusations. It states, for example, that toilet paper production is putting the boreal forests at risk. In reality, forest products from Canada’s boreal region can be counted among the most responsibly made in the world.
At PEFC we are convinced that one size does not fit all when it comes to forest certification. Forests are highly diverse; as is their management, local traditions, cultural and spiritual expectations, average property sizes and support structures. This is why we work through national forest certification systems, enabling countries to tailor their sustainable forest management requirements to their specific forest ecosystems, the legal framework and the socio-cultural context. While these national systems are developed locally, they need to undergo rigorous third-party assessment to ensure consistency with international requirements. International benchmark standards are used by our national members to develop their national standards. The benchmark standards set out the requirements that national standards must meet in order to achieve PEFC endorsement. Our Sustainable Forest Management standard is a benchmark standard. International standards are applied directly in the field. These include our standards for Chain of Custody and Trademarks, which are used by thousands of companies, certification bodies and accreditation bodies around the world.
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