Remarks by Weyerhaeuser Canada President and
Chief Executive Officer George H. Weyerhaeuser,
Jr.
To: Fourth Global Conference on Paper and the
Environment
Paris, France
June 10, 1996
I am pleased to be here to join with leaders
of the pulp and paper industry from Europe and
North America to talk about paper and the
environment. With much debate swirling around the
industry these days, I began to wonder when the
act of cutting down a tree first became
controversial. It seems like the debate has been
going on forever.
Well, I can now report that it has, almost.
According to historians, public expression of
concern about the impact of tree cutting was
first recorded about 4,700 years ago, in
Mesopotamia. I found some comfort in the
knowledge that the controversy has been going for
centuries, likely ever since humans began using
wood and wood fiber.
Still, so far as we know, Mesopotamia didn't
have mass communications, CNN, talk shows or the
Internet. There is no question that over the past
20 years, we've witnessed unprecedented concern,
scrutiny and sometimes direct assaults-on
industrial forestry.
Both in North America and abroad, advocacy
groups have raised concerns about clearcutting
and the need to preserve old growth. Major
campaigns have been mounted to protect
endangered-species habitat. Groups have promoted
consumer boycotts of paper products. Too
frequently, the forest industry is portrayed as a
destructive despoiler of the environment.
In this atmosphere, we must ask: What will the
future look like for industrial forestry? In
brief, I would forecast a rough patch of road
near term, but a more favorable outlook in the
future.
If you look at demand for wood fiber, there is
reason to be positive. There is a growing
population and increasing global demand for
fiber. Our products make a significant
contribution to the quality of life. We are in a
business manufacturing products that are
renewable, recyclable and sustainable. In fact,
paper and wood producers have the potential to be
models of sustainability. But, of course, it is
not quite that easy.
To achieve that future, we need to respond to
genuine societal concern about the environmental
impact of industrial forestry. These concerns
have been expressed in varying degrees at both
the ballot box of electoral politics and in the
marketplace of consumer preference. Part of the
solution, I believe, resides in a new
"social contract" with the public for
industrial forestry.
During my remarks this afternoon, I would like
to explore with you what this social contract for
industrial forestry is about; why we need it, and
the benefits it can deliver.
Although I will elaborate in a few minutes
about what a social contract involves, let me
provide a shorthand version. It sum, it means
that the public accepts tree harvesting and
forest management as socially valuable, based on
the utility of our products and overall benefits
we create for people-be they customers,
employees, communities or investors.
But we can take the social contract even
further than that. It can help us defuse the
controversy surrounding forestry and the use of
paper products. It can help us turn down the
volume of public debate and increase public
support.
The pulp and paper industry can be recognized
as responsible stewards of the forest and
managers of the environment. We all want to work
in a business that is respected by the public and
valued by customers. We want employees to feel
pride in the work they do and in the products we
make. And we want a secure and prosperous future
for our business enterprises. It will take more
than just technology or capital to get there. It
will take a renewed social contract for
industrial forestry and better alignment with
public values.
The idea of a social contract itself is hardly
radical. We each live in countries and
communities knit together by a complex web of
social contracts. For example, if I see a
"Metro" sign on the streets of Paris, I
know I can walk down the stairs, purchase a
ticket, and within a few minutes board a subway
that will take me to another part of the city.
As businesspeople, citizens and individuals,
we are party to scores of voluntary agreements,
some written, most simply understood. When these
agreements are in dispute, we have mechanisms
like courts and governments to enforce them. When
it comes to environmental issues, we face both
conventional courts of law and the informal court
of public opinion.
Let's look at the notion of a "social
contract" as it relates to industrial
forestry. It has many dimensions, but three
important ones:
1. The social contract implies that our
ability to manage forests and harvest
timber-whether on private or public lands-depends
of the consent of the public.
Dr. Clark Binkley, the respected dean of the
Faculty of Forestry at the University of British
Columbia, recently published a paper that
observed: "cutting down a tree creates
ethical obligations: an obligation to sustain the
forest from which the tree was cut; an obligation
to use the wood wisely and efficiently."
Embracing these obligations and publicly
articulating them, Dr. Binkley concluded, might
help move us a step closer to greater public
support for forestry.
2. The social contract reflects the
acceptance of obligations between successive
generations.
This captures the notion of what we now call
"sustainability," defined in the
Brundtland report as: "development that
meets the needs of the present, without
compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs."
3. The social contract, like any
traditional contract, describes rights and
benefits in return for obligations.
Contracts define accountability and increase
certainty that all parties will perform to
expectations.
A social contract does not mean greater and
unjustified intrusion by government into the
marketplace. As we will discuss in a few moments,
the success of a new social contract will very
much depend on the workings of an innovative,
dynamic market system.
All of the elements described above-public
consent, sustainability, rights in exchange for
obligations-speak to the notion of stewardship.
Indeed, it is precisely on the question of
stewardship that the assault on industrial
forestry is based. It is this ground that
industry must now strive to regain.
When I started working for the company about
20 years ago, the prevailing social contract was
a much simpler arrangement. Forest companies
harvested trees and replanted seedlings,
manufactured a host of useful products, and
provided well-paying employment opportunities.
Resource scarcity and environmental impacts were
not yet a practical daily concern for forest
companies.
Today, public-opinion research tells us that
public misgiving about the impact of commercial
forestry is widespread. There is a new awareness
of the finite nature of Earth's resources and
concern about overharvesting and wasteful
consumption. Public anxiety is heightened by
mounting population pressures, incidents of
environmental degradation, and ominous
predictions about global warming and climate
change.
As well, commercial forestry now faces an
experienced, well-financed, permanent opposition.
Environmental activism is international and
institutionalized. Advocacy groups are active on
a wide range of interests and issues.
In the forest sector, this has included
campaigns targeting everything from mill
effluents to harvesting practices. These groups
are media-savvy, with an enviable talent for
generating news coverage. Many are active around
the globe, using computer networks to share
information and implement coordinated strategies.
Environmental groups raise many questions
about industrial forestry-with the public,
regulators, customers, consumers, even investors.
We are sometimes reluctant to concede how much
positive change has occurred in forest practices
as a direct result of activism by
environmentalists. Their efforts have helped us
become a better industry.
But all of this debate has raised doubt in the
public mind about the long-term future of the
forest industry. To restore public confidence, it
is not reasonable to tell people that attacks on
industrial forestry are wrong-headed or
scientifically unfounded. Indeed, some of their
assertions have turned out to be true. So today,
we need to listen, learn and match industry
performance with public expectations to
demonstrate the compatibility of industrial
forestry with responsible stewardship.
How can we do a better job connecting with a
wide, diverse public that includes everyone from
employees to local communities to overseas
customers, consumers and legislators thousands of
kilometers away?
Consider the new global connections implicit
in freer world trade. Factor in the expansion of
personal interaction and individual choice
becoming possible through the Internet. With so
many boundaries disappearing, how can we possibly
forge a new social contract around industrial
forestry that embraces all producers,
manufacturers, customers, consumers and
stakeholders around the world?
I see a solution to this dilemma in the
workings of the free market. In fact, against the
backdrop of the challenge we face, the importance
of the free market to the new social contract for
industrial forestry becomes apparent and -- dare
I say -- natural.
Adam Smith's metaphor of the "invisible
hand" to describe the workings of the free
market system offers insight into
environmentalism as well as into economics. In
showing that the economy functions
organically-like an ecosystem-Smith described how
the connection of millions of voluntary choices
created something much greater than the sum of
its parts.
Consider the pencil-a remnant of low
technology in the digital age. Yet understanding
the pencil is a simple way to understand the
cooperative functioning of the market.
Where did the wood come from? The metal rim?
The rubber? The paint? The lead? Just reflect for
a moment how much voluntary human interaction was
essential to make the pencil available-affordable
and within easy purchasing distance anywhere in
the world. That is the "invisible hand"
of the free market. Literally millions of tiny
miracles of competition and cooperation that
together form a free-market system-one that
mimics in some ways Mother Nature's own intricate
ecosystem.
Apply that same insight to a more complex end
product ...say a monthly magazine for readers in
Western Europe. How is it created? Trees are
harvested in Canada using North American and
Scandinavian technology. The logs are
manufactured into lumber using Canadian
technology. Chip byproducts are converted to
kraft pulp using resource inputs from around
Canada and technology drawn from around the
world.
The market pulp arrives in Germany and is
converted to lightweight coated paper using
Scandinavian technology. The paper is printed on
a high-speed press-likely German in origin.
Articles printed on the pages reflect the
intellectual capital of writers and graphic
designers from a dozen or more countries. The
publication includes advertising for perhaps 100
different products and businesses. The result, a
monthly magazine is-just like the pencil-the
product of countless contracts and transactions
of cooperation and competition. The product of a
free market.
Once the democratic aspect of the free market
is understood-we vote with our purchasing
decisions as well as with ballots-then forging a
viable social contract that has room for
industrial forestry will make sense to the
public.
Once human economic activity is recognized as
natural -and not intrinsically hostile to
nature-there is a basis for a meeting of the
minds. There can be a healthy interrelationship
between good business and sustainable
development. The social contract can be global,
and it can cross generations.
In the United States and Canada where
Weyerhaeuser is managing forestland, it takes
anywhere from 35 to over 100 years between
replanting and harvesting a new stand of trees.
Market conditions a generation or a lifetime into
the future are not only hard to predict-they are
impossible to predict. But the importance of
forests to the planet, and to meeting human
needs, is not in question. The need to
continuously renew the forest is a given.
That takes us back to industrial forestry. The
notion of stewardship is very much a part of our
social contract. The concept of forest
stewardship in Weyerhaeuser is fundamental to our
ethics and values, and it shapes how we operate
our businesses.
In North America, Weyerhaeuser is one of a small
number of "multi-generational" forest
companies. The company celebrates its 100 th
anniversary in the year 2000. I am the
fifth generation of my family who has enjoyed the
privilege of sharing in the company's management
and growth. Along the way, the company has been
recognized for pioneering efforts in what is now
called sustainable forestry.
My great-great grandfather, Frederick
Weyerhaeuser, one of the founders of the company,
had a view of managing the forests that
encompassed future generations. On the company's
founding in 1900, he is reported to have said:
"this is not for us, nor for our children,
but for our grandchildren."
Still today, our commitment to forest renewal
and to research is deep and long-standing. While
it supports what I am referring to today as our
"social contract," I would make the
case that it also reflects a sound, long-term
business strategy. Good business judgment equates
to honoring the social contract, and vice versa.
In the early 1940s, the company pioneered the
American Tree Farm system of sustained-yield
forest management. On some of our private land,
we are now harvesting our third forest crop.
Our commitment to significant investment into
forestry research also began nearly 50 years ago.
It initially focused on regeneration of native
species, soil productivity, optimizing timber
yield per hectare, seedling nurseries, and tree
improvement.
In the mid 1960s, we were "early
adopters" of then-emerging computer
technology to model and implement High Yield
Forestry to maximize long-term forest
productivity on our private lands. During the
same period, we were among the first companies to
bring scientists and technicians specializing in
wildlife and fisheries biology and, later,
aquatic ecology, forest hydrology and
environmental forestry-into our forest-management
process.
Today, our scientists and forest managers
continue to pioneer new dimensions of resource
management, including watershed analyses and
habitat conservation planning started in the US
Pacific Northwest and now being introduced
elsewhere.
We are applying geographic information systems
(GIS)-satellite technology and computer
modeling-to modifying the aesthetics of forest
harvesting and management in many operating
areas.
We also engage in cooperative research with
universities and public agencies. And we have
been project partners and financial supporters of
a number of environmental organizations.
All of these activities speak to stewardship
as a key element in the social contract for
industrial forestry as practiced by Weyerhaeuser.
The social contract is not words so much as it is
action and performance.
We must start by continuing to meet human
needs for wood and fiber. This also involves
meeting community needs for sustainable jobs.
Tomorrow morning, Weyerhaeuser's technical
director, Dean Decrease, will describe how we
integrate the needs of key stakeholders to
optimize our production processes using our
"minimum-impact manufacturing" (MIM)
strategy.
Industry must demonstrate its commitment to
stewardship by considering the other users and
interests -whether we operate on tree farms on
private land or on public forestland.
We must bring to industrial forestry a
commitment to reinvest in the land-to pass to
future generations a forest as productive and
"green" today as it was when we became
its stewards.
We must be willing to embrace voluntary
self-regulation in managing the environmental
impacts of our activities. We can show commitment
to the public interest by being proactive-not
simply complying with the regulatory
"stick" of government.
As an industry, we must publicly support
defined forestry principles that focus not only
on wood production, but also accommodate other
values, including soil, water, fish and wildlife
habitat, culturally unique areas, and plant and
species diversity. Within some reasonable
standard, we must accommodate less tangible
considerations, such as biodiversity goals.
In regions of Canada where we operate, we are
beginning to work more closely with Aboriginal
peoples, who have inhabited some of these areas
for 4,000 years or more. We are learning from
them about forest values implicit in their
culture, tradition and experience.
Finally, in all of these areas, we must
demonstrate a commitment to continuous
improvement in our environmental and our economic
performance. We recognize the need to act on
ever-better information, not on narrow ideology
or simplistic, short-term interest.
As custodians of the public interest,
governments also have a role in the new social
contract.
Governments must protect a defined land base
for intensive commercial forestry. In the case of
Weyerhaeuser, this will involve private lands in
the United States and public forestland in Canada
zoned specifically for more intensive industrial
forestry where timber production is the primary
use. Secure, long-term access to timber is
essential to adequate reinvestment.
Commercial forestry makes a major contribution
to Canada's economy. Because so much original
forest remains in Canada, it has a unique
opportunity for a policy of wise set-asides to
reflect representative ecosystems. If decision
making is based on reliable science and common
sense, Canada's role as a major producer of
forest products for the world need not be
compromised.
Like industry, governments must also strive to
be innovative. Both elected representatives and
regulatory agencies must accept the onus to use
sound science as the basis for regulation and to
demonstrate the benefit achieved. Traditional
command-and-control regulation should be replaced
with incentive-based standards and defined
resource targets. That way, companies are free to
be innovative in determining how environmental
goals are best achieved. The focus shifts from
enforcement to results. Environmental leadership
can be rewarded.
Although many governments are burdened with
deficits and accumulated debt, they must resist
the temptation to impose taxes that deny business
a fair return on investment. Just as industry has
a responsibility not to degrade the health of the
environment and to respect the rights of future
generations, governments have an obligation not
to degrade the health of the economy by imposing
unsustainable levels of regulation and taxation.
Governments have a related obligation not to
reduce our ability to meet the challenge of
intense global competition, so long as companies
meet environmental performance goals.
Achieving these goals underscores the need for
a global consensus about forestry standards.
Ideally, we should strive for international
agreements to set a fair, level playing field for
all participants. An international certification
process for industrial forestry standards could
be a God-send or it could be an unmitigated
disaster-depending on its content. But with a
shrinking globe, with economic, trade and
information boundaries fading way, I am convinced
that we must take the high ground by working
toward an international consensus on standards
that make sense. The less-attractive options are
to wait for others to define standards for us or
to deal with different standards in multiple
jurisdictions.
The ISO approach to defining international
standards makes a lot of sense to us. ISO was
created in 1947 to establish consistent standards
that would allow trade barriers to be removed,
creating more opportunities for free trade.
The new ISO 14001 guidelines, which define
broad environmental management standards for
manufacturing industries, are a case in point. We
believe an ISO approach could also help us
define, implement and certify international
standards for sustainable forestry practices.
In part, it asks green activists to build
bridges and seek common ground with the other
side-the same demand it makes of industry. I see
this as a highly inclusive process, embracing
most green activist groups.
To negotiate this contract, however, we need
to marginalize the extreme elements on both
sides. Environmental "fundamentalists"
who perceive humans as somehow hostile to nature
and outside the ecosystem want to eliminate
industrial forestry and consumption of paper
products. They hold little sway with the public.
Likewise, companies who behave irresponsibly
toward nature are held in low esteem.
Instead, sincere environmentalists are
beginning to work with industry in defining
shared, reasonable goals and pragmatic solutions.
We have worked hard in recent years to reach out
and to build bridges to these stakeholders, both
in Europe and in North America.
In sum, the new social contract needed to make
sustainable commercial forestry secure has room
neither for environmental fundamentalists, nor
for irresponsible corporations, nor for runaway
government regulation.
Today, the notion of sustainable environment
means a fundamentally changed operating climate
for industrial forestry. We must find new ways to
deal with business impacts internal and external
to the marketplace. I am convinced that we can
not only sustain the forest, but we can use our
intelligence and apply continuous learning to
build forest wealth over time.
As in nature, the free market sees and blends
competition and cooperation. Both companies and
species have become extinct as a result of
factors completely beyond and outside the purview
of human control or influence. Change is a
constant.
In the media age, public scrutiny of
industrial forestry is a fact of life. If our
forest practices are responsible, if industry
performs to defined standards, if our processes
are open, then public support can be increased.
Most citizens are not extremists and will welcome
a sincere, positive initiative from industry to
secure sustainable environmental quality and a
prosperous forest sector.
Maintaining access to timber and fiber-whether
on public or private land-depends on a renewed
social contract that will restore public
acceptance and appreciation for industrial
forestry and the products made from it.
That new social contract has many aspects, but
none more important than stewardship. It includes
continuous improvement in how we do business and
better understanding of the environmental impacts
of our business. And it requires renewed public
trust in our ability to understand and
effectively manage the impacts of industrial
forestry.
If we can effectively articulate the
dimensions of that new social contract, we shall
not only find our own "green" niche in
the global economy. We will also achieve
prosperity and profitability by manufacturing
products needed by people. At the same time, we
will continue to make a positive contribution to
the planet's conservation as the home for both
humans and countless other species.
As business leaders in the pulp and paper
industry, we must take the initiative on many
fronts: with our peers, with government, with the
public and the media, with communities, with
consumers, with investors, and with potential
environmental partners. We must seek, as the
final, binding seal of our new social contract,
an ethic of openness, honesty, fairness and
balance in public dialogue around forestry
issues.
In many respects, we have been continuously
renegotiating and rewriting the social contract
around forestry for decades-even centuries. As
history shows, probably for as long as people
have been cutting down trees.
Wood fiber has been used over millennia to
meet fundamental human needs. With reason as our
guide and hopefulness our companion, I believe we
can seek a renewed and just social contract for
industrial forestry. And we can achieve a
sustainable supply of fiber and a secure and
prosperous future for pulp and paper business
enterprises.
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