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Editorial
4 May 2002
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INVADING
THE BOARDROOM
Our
View: - Editorial, Post Register, Idaho Falls, ID
May 4, 2002
Here's
an unexpected headline: Boise Cascade Corp. pledges not to
cut down trees 200 years of age and older.
Now
here's the story behind it: Conservationists spent most of
the 20th century using the power of government to accomplish
their goals. But as the 21st century opens, they've found a
new tool - private enterprise.
They've
begun to invade the corporate boardrooms, holding management
accountable to shareholders and other clients - who believe
corporate profits and wise stewardship of natural resources
are not mutually exclusive.
The
tactic is beginning to have some effect, especially with
large timber companies.
The
Idaho Conservation League and the Spokane-based Inland
Empire Lands Council launched the tactic by pushing through
"accountability" resolutions at annual shareholder meetings
for Boise Cascade and Weyerhaeuser Corp.
Conservationists
used the stockholders' meeting to spotlight Boise Cascade's
hostile lawsuit against the federal initiative to protect 58
million acres of roadless forests. And they reminded
Weyerhaeuser shareholders of what was described as "a
devastating legacy of clear-cutting damage and chemical
water pollution," particularly near the Oregon
coast.
To
outsiders, these shareholder resolutions look routine.
Indeed, the measures make no mention of environment or
environmental issues. They are aimed at piercing the layers
of corporate bureaucracy that separate management from both
shareholders and the larger public.
One
resolution would make it easier to replace a corporate board
of directors. It calls for annual election of all directors,
instead of electing them to serve staggered
terms.
The
other resolution would enable outside investors to take over
a company and remove its management. This is now barred by a
"poison pill" provision, which the resolution seeks to
remove.
If
management becomes more responsive to its shareholders and
the public, it would have to acknowledge the
following:
- Polls
show decisive support for the roadless forest
initiative.
- Only
4 percent of the nation's wood products come from public
lands.
- Timber
companies have alternatives to wood for pulp and paper
production. Kenaf, hemp, flax and other vegetative
sources have been identified as promising pulping
sources. Two decades ago an Arizona manufacturer
successfully produced marketable newspaper newsprint from
kenaf. Other kenaf plants have been developed in the
meantime. Yet logging firms have not shown a serious
interest in renovating their mills to utilize crops for
paper production.
This
struggle for accountability isn't limited to the corporate
boardrooms. Customers who buy paper products from the timber
companies - chains such as Staples and Kinkos and colleges
over the nation - are taking similar stands.
Anticipating
demand for it from a public becoming more aware of forest
issues, Staples is introducing a line of paper that is "100
percent free of public land trees, old-growth fiber or
native Southern loblolly pine."
L.L.
Bean, the national outdoor equipment firm, has quit buying
from firms utilizing public land trees.
Other
firms have sent the same message by using only recycled
paper.
John
Osborn, a Spokane physician who organized the Lands Council
to fight "hit-and-run" foresting in northern Idaho and
Washington nearly a decade ago, originated this green
invasion of natural resource company boardrooms. So far, he
has made Wall Street flinch only a little.
For
instance, Boise Cascade's shareholders voted 4-to-1 in favor
of annual election of directors - and the company's
management has ignored the resolution for three straight
years.
But
Osborn's tactic is getting through - however slowly. The
surest proof is Boise Cascade's decision to spare old
growth. No government regulation forced the company to take
that step. It acted in its own best interests.
By
J. Robb Brady, Post Register, Idaho Falls, Idaho
Post
Register editorial board members are Roger Plothow, acting
publisher; J. Robb Brady; Marty Trillhaase; and Dean
Miller.
http://www.headwatersnews.org/pr.envcorp.html
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