Unless you have your very own Greenpeace calendar, you might have missed this year’s International Migratory Bird Day
    Maybe you’re thinking: “Too bad for me. I’ll celebrate migratory birds next year.”
    Yes, but- maybe you won’t.
    Did you know that the Boreal Forest- one of our last ancient forests, and a forest that Kimberly-Clark continues to destroy- is home to hundreds of animal species? Moose, caribou, wolves, linx, bear, eagles, owls, hawks, AND 30 per cent of North America’s songbirds AND 40 per cent of its waterfowl. Do know just how important this habitat is to migratory birds?  Billions of birds breed in the Boreal forest each year. Many of these birds come from as far as South America every summer, and many also come from areas in lower North America. That means the White-throated Sparrow or Swainson’s thrush you hear on your walk through your local park travels up to the Boreal each year. It's a loooong commute, but these birds do it. In fact, nearly half of North American bird species breed in the Boreal. The report, “The importance of the Boreal Forest to birds,” by Dr. Peter Blancher, Bird Studies Canada states “this forest is of immense global importance to landbirds, especially during the spring and summer when billions of landbirds rely on Boreal nesting grounds.” Yet clear-cutting of the Boreal forest for products such as tissue and toilet paper is destroying habitat and nests of birds living in these forests. Will the birds that traveled south this fall have a forest to return to next spring?
    So now you’re thinking, “I’ve just got to take action.” Want to take more action?

    PS: All you bird people out there-- the above photo is of a "Boreal bird" but which one? I'll send a Greenpeace t-shirt to the first person who gets it right. Contact me by signing up for a Greenpeace blog!  

You already know about Kimberly-Clark's outrageous forestry practices and you're already outraged. What else can you do to send a clear message to the company that their behavior continues to be unacceptable and needs to be changed? Here's something that at first may seem like an odd idea: Vote!

That's right, you can vote Kimberly-Clark into Corporate Accountability International’s Corporate Hall of Shame. K-C is listed up there, right next to Ford, ExxonMobil and Halliburton (yikes, just typing those names gives me the shivers).
You can vote for three corporations that deserve to be inducted this year, and you can even post comments about why these corporations should be inducted. Tell your friends about it and why they should nominate K-C. Then check back in June to make sure we’re inducting K-C!

To vote, click here

    In  Rules for Radicals, published way back in 1972, the well-known community organizer  Saul Alinsky got really excited about this thing he called shareholder activism. Alinsky saw shareholder activism as being two-fold: organizations and individuals could use their shares (their stocks) in a company to make the company listen to their demands and organizational/individual shareholders could use their shares to help other organizations that wanted to talk with the company.
    Fast-forward to this year’s Kimberly-Clark’s annual shareholder meeting (its AGM). The scene is a fancy hotel conference room in Los Colinas, Texas. Enter K-C executives, K-C board members, K-C accountants. Enter Greenpeace Forest Campaigners, a woman who has traveled all the way from Alberta, Canada, a Harvard University student and K-C shareholders. Watch shareholder activism unfold.

 
Elizabeth Shope, Harvard Student


    At this year’s K-C AGM, socially responsible investment firms including Domini Social Investments, Calvert, Green Century Fund, The Basilian Fathers of Toronto and other major shareholders of K-C submitted a proposal on which K-C shareholders were asked to vote. The proposal asks the company to: “…prepare a report…assessing the feasibility of phasing out our company’s use of non-Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified fiber within 10 years” with an emphasis on increasing the use of recycled fiber and avoiding fiber sourced from certification schemes other than FSC. The resolution earned the support of a whopping $2 billion worth of K-C stock. By voting in favor of the resolution, K-C shareholders sent a strong message that K-C’s environmentally irresponsible behavior will not be tolerated.
    And what about the “Harvard student” and woman from Alberta, Canada casually mentioned in paragraph 2? Certainly there must have been a point in mentioning them earlier? Where will they come in? Right here. At the AGM, Helene Walsh, a representative of the Alberta Foothills Network spoke about the on-the-ground impacts of KC’s atrocious forestry policies. Harvard student Elizabeth Shope announced to K-C executives, shareholders and board members that she had successfully convinced Harvard to begin a phase-out of K-C products. (Read the article in the Harvard Crimson.)
    In that room, on that day, the sweat beads were dripping off the K-C executives’ faces. Did you just ask: Is this shareholder activism at its Saul Alinsky finest? I think you already know the answer.