Climate

WHAT IS THE CHALLENGE?

Climate change has the potential to cause enormous disruptions in our world, affecting everything from how we do business to the well-being of our team and communities to the health of ecosystems around the planet. As global temperatures climb, changes in surface temperature and precipitation trends are leading to the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, wildfires and a loss of biodiversity. Sea level rise, rising ocean temperatures and changes to standard growing conditions present challenges to our coastal communities and forests around the world. Risks to society, including threats to food security, water supply and economic growth, are also increasingly likely and severe.

To avoid the worst projected impacts, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stressed the need to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. All pathways to limit warming rely on rapid and dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, coupled with the transition to low- or zero-carbon energy sources and materials and the removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere to counterbalance residual emissions.

WHAT IS OUR ROLE?

As the steward of millions of acres of sustainably managed forests in the United States and Canada, and one of the largest producers of wood products in the world, we believe we are uniquely positioned to be part of the solution to the global challenge of climate change — and to help address the risks this crisis poses to our people, our operations and the communities where we live and work.

Our role in addressing climate change is multifaceted, starting with drastically reducing our CO₂ emissions and producing low-carbon energy sources and materials. But our most significant contribution comes through providing immediate and long-term solutions to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere. As they grow, all the trees in our millions of acres of forests naturally sequester CO₂ and store it as solid carbon. Every wood product we produce, or that our customers make from our logs, then stores much of that carbon for the life of the homes and buildings those finished products are used to build. After harvest, we replant new trees (or in some situations, we make sure the forest is regenerated naturally) to begin the cycle again. Every year, our growing landscape of trees absorbs more carbon than we harvest. It’s part of a continuous and ever-increasing equation of carbon sequestration and storage on the landscape and in our products, and it makes working forests a powerful, far-reaching and cost-effective tool to help limit the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

As one of the world’s largest private forest landowners, we recognize our added responsibility to manage our forests well in the face of climate change, and we work to ensure they stay healthy and productive and continue to act as a natural climate solution. We also know that climate change is projected to more severely affect communities that are already vulnerable, and we are committed to leveraging our sustainable working forests and our influence as a company to deliver equitable, climate-smart solutions that benefit everyone.

WHAT DO WE WANT TO ACHIEVE BY 2030?

By 2030, we envision a world where the value of working forests and the products that come from them are fully recognized as one of the key solutions for slowing and reducing the impacts of climate change. Through our research, stewardship and industry leadership, we endeavor to be a model for how working forests can and should be part of a sustainable, biodiverse and climate-resilient solution — today and long into the future.

WHERE ARE WE FOCUSED FOR PHASE 2?

While there is much we can accomplish over a decade, we have structured our long-term goals into three-year phases to effectively prioritize and accelerate progress. Our first phase was completed in 2022 and was marked by clear progress we will build on and momentum we will carry forward. During the second phase of our 3 by 30 Sustainability Ambitions, between 2023 and 2025, we are focusing our work in two key areas:

PHASE 2 ACCOMPLISHMENTS

During the second phase of our 3 by 30 Ambitions, we are intentionally making fewer, but more strategic, investments of our time and resources. We will share our accomplishments and baseline measures in this space semi-annually.

FOUNDATIONAL SUCCESSES FROM PHASE 1 (2020 – 2022)

In the first phase of our work to achieve our 3 by 30 Ambitions, we laid the groundwork for meaningful progress toward our goals. We accomplished over 90 percent of the action items we set out to achieve in the climate ambition; remaining actions were rolled into Phase 2.