Published 19 hours ago
Submitted by Georgia Pacific
Imogene Pass – Ouray, CO
Now that my children are out of college, I’ve had a chance to reflect on our summer, which included visits to five national parks (White Sands, Grand Canyon, Zion, Arches, and Canyonlands) and a return to southwest Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. As I hiked through the hot New Mexico desert, camped at a cool 11,000 feet at Imogene Pass, or gazed at whitewater rafters braving the rushing Colorado River hundreds of feet below my perch on the North Rim, I was struck by the unique gifts of our natural world environment offers.
While it’s a nice change from the office, it also highlights the importance of Georgia Pacific LLC‘s commitment to management. I work as part of a team that helps my company source raw materials more responsibly, use resources more efficiently and reduce waste. We also work to understand the needs of our customers, employees and communities and look for opportunities to create mutual benefits. Georgia-Pacific relies on the natural environment for the wood, water and other resources we use to create products that meet society’s needs. GP has been helping people improve their lives through mutual benefit for nearly a century. As a forest products company, we rely on healthy, lush forests and clean, abundant water. Forests protect air and water quality, serve as habitat for wildlife, provide recreational, spiritual and cultural uses, provide carbon benefits, and provide natural resources for producing the products people want and need. My family definitely enjoyed these relaxing and spiritual benefits during our time together in the West. At Georgia-Pacific, we work to use these resources efficiently, source them responsibly, protect vulnerable areas, and support wildlife and biodiversity conservation.
I want to highlight three areas where Georgia-Pacific is investing in conservation outcomes statewide:
- Our Endangered Forests Program. We use scientific methods developed in collaboration with experts in ecology and geographic information systems mapping at the University of Georgia NatureServe – that takes into account and evaluates the ecological values associated with the forests in our sourcing areas. These ecological values include rare and endangered species, high biodiversity, intact forest landscapes and resilient and connected landscapes. In addition, each of these areas will be verified through site visits and/or satellite imagery.
- Our participation in the Wildlife Habitat Council‘S Wildlife at Work program. We currently have WHC locations at a dozen GP production sites. These projects range from pollination plots to bluebird boxes to hardwood pine restoration and ongoing monitoring of gopher tortoise populations.
- The partnership between ours Quilted Northern Ultra Soft & Strong® brand and the Arbor Day Foundation to restore ecosystems by planting two trees for every tree used to make the product. Much of this planting is used to combat wildfires and hurricanes in the United States. The Quilted Northern® brand is committed to restoring forests and restoring the habitats of endangered and threatened species. Starting in 2023, we will be responsible for planting over 7 million trees at 46 project locations.
Tuweep Overlook, North Rim
GP’s conservation projects
For us at GP, stewardship involves the responsible use of our actions and the resources entrusted to us in a way that respects the rights of others. By “rights” we mean the right of every individual to his or her own life, property and equal treatment before the law. This is the foundation of our stewardship framework, which we use to help people improve their lives by offering products and services that they value more than their alternatives. We experiment and innovate to responsibly create more value while using fewer resources. These resources include the natural environments we rely on for our raw materials, the processes we use to transform them into goods and services, and the relationships we foster with our employees and communities. For this reason, we value responsible resource management. We work to ensure our resources are managed to create value for GP and our customers. You can find out more about our commitment to stewardship here Koch Industries Stewardship Framework.
Progress with purpose
Our Progress with Purpose stewardship report provides an annual overview of our performance.
Nature has been an important part of my life and my relationships with my family and friends. This summer’s trip energized me while familiarizing me with the importance of our framework and the progress Georgia-Pacific continues to make toward being a good environmental steward, including promoting conservation activities that require more resources to meet other needs make available in society.
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Arches National Park, UT
Torreya State Park, one of GP’s conservation projects
Progress with purpose
White Rim Trail, Canyonlands National Park, UT
Georgia Pacific
Georgia Pacific
Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia-Pacific and its subsidiaries are among the world’s leading manufacturers and marketers of bath towels, paper towels and napkins, tableware, paper-based packaging, cellulose, specialty fibers, nonwovens, building products and related chemicals. Our well-known consumer brands include Quilted Northern®, Angel Soft®, Brawny®, Dixie®, enMotion®, Sparkle® and Vanity Fair®. Georgia-Pacific has long been a leading supplier of building products to lumber and building materials retailers and major home improvement retailers. The subsidiary Georgia-Pacific Recycling is one of the world’s largest traders of paper, metal and plastics. The company operates more than 150 facilities, directly employs more than 30,000 people and indirectly creates approximately 89,000 jobs. For more information, visit: gp.com/about-us. For news, visit: gp.com/news
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