JC Penney Exposed by ‘Candace The Caribou’ and the ‘Radical Cheerleaders’ for Impacts on G

JC Penney Among Major Catalog Retailers Targeted For Using Non-Recycled Paper Made From Endangered Forests, Contributing to Global Warming 

ForestEthics will be joined by local activists and ‘Candace the Caribou’ for a lively protest at the JC Penney store in Eastridge Shopping Center, 2230 Eastridge Loop, San Jose at 12 noon. on Saturday, July 28, 2007.

In the fifth stop of a national tour, Candace and ForestEthics will be there to let the public know that retail catalogs are major contributors to deforestation and global warming. Catalog retailers send out 20 billion catalogs a year, and JC Penney alone floods the mail with 14 million of their catalogs. Almost none of the paper contains any recycled content. This means over 8 million tons of trees are logged annually just for catalogs. This has a devastating effect on our last remaining Endangered Forests, including the North American Boreal. Candace left her Boreal Forest home in Ontario this summer to tour the U.S. to bring an important message to catalog retailers: Stop destroying my habitat for wasteful catalogs!

Candace’s tour is visiting the companies with the worst environmental standards, including J. Crew, Eddie Bauer, Crate & Barrel, and Sears/Land’s End. Also at the San Jose JC Penney’s will be the ‘radical cheerleaders’, who will offer their unique brand of resistance to catalog retailers’ destruction of forests with lively protest cheers.
“Companies like Dell, Williams-Sonoma and Victoria’s Secret have set new environmental standards,” said Shana Ortman of ForestEthics. “The rest of the catalog industry can no longer pretend this is not an issue. They will have to meet or exceed these standards to stay competitive and avoid public outcry about their participation in Global Warming and Endangered Forest destruction.”



Stretching from Alaska to Canada’s Atlantic coast, the Boreal Forest is thirteen times the size of California and is one of the planet’s first lines of defense against global warming. The Boreal is home to hundreds of First Nations Indigenous communities, and provides critical habitat for many species, including songbirds and endangered caribou. ForestEthics is calling on catalog retail giants to stop making their catalogs from Endangered Forests, use more post-consumer recycled content, use sustainable fiber certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, and reduce overall paper use. Companies like Williams-Sonoma, Dell, and Victoria’s Secret have already stepped up to these demands and have improved their practices. Other industry giants will have to meet or exceed those industry leaders’ standards to stay competitive and avoid public protest.
ForestEthics, a nonprofit with staff in Canada, the United States and Chile, recognizes that individual people can be mobilized to create positive environmental change—and so can corporations. Armed with this unique philosophy, ForestEthics has protected more than seven million acres of Endangered Forests.

Visit http://www.ForestEthics.org or http://www.catalogcutdown.org for more information.