Social Responsibility

OPERATING SAFELY

Perhaps the most fundamental characteristic of our culture at Weyerhaeuser is our deep commitment to the safety of our people. For us, safety is a core value and comes first in everything we do. Our goal is to eliminate all serious, life-altering injuries from our workplace on our journey to injury-free, and we have made significant improvements over many decades. In 2019, serious employee injuries were down 18 percent from the previous year, and the severity of those injuries was nearly 35 percent lower. Our contractor safety performance also improved in 2019, with the number of serious contractor injuries down 32 percent versus the previous year. Any injury is one too many for us, but we are pleased with the progress we’ve made to mitigate our highest-risk areas and reduce the number of injuries our people experience at work. 

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Building An Inclusive Culture

The urgency of our inclusion work has never been greater, and we are taking real action to increase diversity at all levels of our company, create a truly inclusive environment, and secure, preserve and promote equity for all people — both within our operations and in our communities.  

Diverse companies are more successful; this is clear from the research. Every year, more studies reinforce the connection between workplace diversity and financial success, and diverse companies are also more innovative, which drives ongoing improvement and competitive advantage. Companies that focus on improving diversity also play a critical role in society by creating opportunities for traditionally excluded individuals to prosper, and by raising awareness about the importance of equity and inclusion in the workplace.  

We know that improving in this area requires so much more than recruiting diverse talent — we must also build a culture that compels people to stay once they join our team. To help us accelerate our progress, in 2019 we added inclusion to our list of company values and formed an Inclusion Council of 20 diverse employees from all corners of our company. This group provides insights and recommendations to our senior management team, and, based on their input, we established six focus areas for improvement: leadership and accountability; equitable practices and policies; recruiting and hiring; training and development; communication and dialogue; and fostering affinity. In each category we set targets for improvement, and every year we will renew these targets. In 2020, in the wake of widespread protests following the death of George Floyd, we convened our Inclusion Council to discuss what more we can and should do to accelerate our progress. Based on their input, the senior management team updated our list of targets for 2020, which totals 20 distinct actions (some existing, some expanded, and some new) to drive meaningful improvement at our company. 

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DEVELOPING OUR PEOPLE

Our employees want to work for a company that cares about their professional growth, and we want people on our team who strive to continually learn and grow throughout their careers.  

To facilitate that growth, we offer three leadership development programs for each level of leadership: front-line, midlevel and executive. In 2019, more than 300 employees participated in these programs, and 100 percent of the participants said in follow-up surveys that they would recommend the programs to others. We also place strong emphasis on individual development planning, and in 2019 we rolled out a new tool to help employees and their leaders have more meaningful conversations about career development. Nearly 95 percent of our employees completed this process in 2019. 

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COMPETITIVE PEOPLE PRACTICES 

Beyond building a culture of safety, development and inclusion, we also focus on providing competitive pay and benefits that will attract the best talent, and measuring the success of our culture and programs through regular engagement and pulse surveys.  

In 2019, we were one of the first companies in our industry to offer paid parental leave: All U.S. nonunion employees may take up to four weeks of fully paid leave upon the arrival of a new child or children in their family (our Canadian employees receive parental leave in accordance with provincial employment standards). This is in addition to our current six-week disability leave for birth mothers, our adoption assistance program, and other family-related benefits.  

As part of our ongoing commitment to listen and respond to employee concerns, in 2019 we conducted a pulse survey with salaried employees that revealed a workforce engagement score of 87 percent. We also conducted extensive focus group surveys with production workers to better understand areas where we need to make cultural improvements in our manufacturing environments, and implemented detailed action plans to address gaps. This included adjusting shift-scheduling practices, increasing our focus on recognition, and strengthening our leadership commitment to following core people principles.

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SUPPORTING OUR COMMUNITIES

We operate in rural communities across North America, and we are proud to give our time and money to help ensure they are thriving places to live and work. In 2019, we provided $5.1 million in charitable grants, in-kind donations and sponsorships in our communities, and our employees led 280 community projects and volunteered nearly 23,000 hours of their time to causes they care about. Through our companywide employee giving platform, we provide all employees an easy way to donate to their favorite charities using payroll deduction. In 2019, we also added a company matching program of up to $1,000 per employee, and together we raised nearly $430,000 for deserving charities in our communities. 

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ENGAGING OUR STAKEHOLDERS  

Our commitment to citizenship goes beyond charitable giving and volunteerism. For us, being a good corporate citizen is also about listening to our neighbors and partners — and working to ensure our company is fully engaged in the communities where we live and work. Our engagement process varies widely based on the project, issue or group, and our stakeholders and partnerships include everyone from customers and suppliers to investors, employees, communities, policymakers and regulators, Indigenous communities, NGOs and nonprofits, universities and research projects. 

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PROMOTING ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION 

Drawing on more than a century of experience in sustainable forestry, we share our story and expertise through tours of our forests and facilities across North America, and we also operate two centers that are open to the public and provide a range of experiential opportunities to learn about forestry, ecology and environmental issues. In Washington, our Mount St. Helens Forest Learning Center is full of exhibits that tell the story of Mount St. Helens and the return of the forest through interactive, hands-on activities and visual displays. In North Carolina, our Cool Springs Environmental Education Center offers a 1,700-acre working forest and outdoor classroom for visitors — including school groups — to explore forestry working in harmony with wildlife habitat, air quality, water quality and recreational activities.  

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PROVIDING RECREATIONAL ACCESS

Our millions of acres of timberlands in the United States include spectacular lakes and hardwood forests in the Northeast, expansive Southern pine forests spanning from Virginia to Texas, and remote, rugged mountains and scenic rivers in the Pacific Northwest. Whether your passion is birdwatching, hunting, fishing, camping, hiking or cycling, our forests provide exceptional opportunities for outdoor adventure, and we are proud to connect people with everything nature has to offer through our lease and permit programs and open access areas. 

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