Reporting Matters 23: Mondi again recognised as a leader in sustainability reporting

American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) President and CEO Donna Harman issued the following statement regarding Senate passage of the Interior-Environment, Financial Services, Transportation-HUD and Agriculture-FDA mini-omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2019. The legislation included language clarifying Congress’ intent for long-term federal regulatory policy reflecting the carbon-neutrality of forest-based biomass. “This public policy supports U.S. paper and wood manufacturers’ ability to operate on a level playing field with global competitors, which is good for the economy and job creation. Our companies have sought clear policy on biomass carbon neutrality for more than seven years. We appreciate the Senate recognizing the need to foster growth in U.S. manufacturing with its action to ensure that federal biomass policy appropriately reflects our industry’s use of carbon-neutral biomass for energy production.”

Assessors play an important role in PEFC. With PEFC being the only global forest certification system that requires all standards to be independently developed with multi-stakeholder participation, any national forest certification systems that seeks PEFC endorsement is subject to the rigorous PEFC assessment process to ensure their system meets PEFC’s Sustainability Benchmarks. This process, which also includes a sixty day global public consultation as well as a review by the PEFC Panel of Experts, is led by independent, PEFC Registered Assessors. The assessors took a detailed look at the PEFC Sustainability Benchmark requirements, identifying expectations and clarifications for specific requirements in order to reach a better common understanding and a more harmonized and consistent application of the PEFC requirements.

Two Sides has been busy this year, working on behalf of our members to eliminate anti-paper greenwashing claims, to help educate industry stakeholders on hot environmental topics and to conduct research on consumer attitudes toward our industry and its products. To give you a view of what we’ve been up to, here are some of the highlights. Through 3Q24, Two Sides’ Anti-greenwashing Campaign has persuaded 24 more corporations and other organizations to eliminate anti-paper greenwashing claims, which translates to 100 million more consumers who are no longer seeing misleading environmental claims about paper products from their service providers. We are in conversation with several other large companies right now, and continue to pursue claims as we find them. It’s important to note that Two Sides is the only industry organization that directly challenges the senior leadership of major corporations, government entities, educational institutions and other organizations to remove unsubstantiated and misleading environmental claims about paper products.