The Catalog Campaign

Turning Trees Into Trash

It takes millions of trees to produce the catalog industry’s mountains of catalogs. Worst of all, most of those catalogs have no recycled content and are discarded without ever being looked at. Indiana Forest Alliance has been campaigning with ForestEthics to transform the industry.

Many catalog companies are changing their ways. After a two-year campaign, ForestEthics announced an agreement with Victoria’s Secret on December 6th, 2006. Limited Brands, Victoria’s Secret’s parent company, announced a landmark environmental policy that ensures their catalog paper will not come from Endangered Forests. Victoria’s Secret and other industry leaders Dell and Williams-Sonoma are making great progress, and the rest of the industry
will have to follow suit to stay competitive.

Campaign History

In March of 2004, ForestEthics kicked off its Catalog Campaign by naming the "Dirty Half Dozen." These six catalog distributors collectively produce over a billion catalogs a year and were chosen precisely for their large circulations, as well as for their strong brand identity and massive purchasing power. The Dirty Half Dozen includes Victoria’s Secret, Sears/Lands End, JC Penney, LL Bean, J Crew and Williams-Sonoma.

Historically, this industry has been extremely reluctant to compromise, but within a few months of the Catalog Campaign launch, ForestEthics has begun negotiations with all six companies and has already convinced a few of the 'Dirty Half Dozen' to shift to recycled paper. In fact, after negotiating with ForestEthics, Dell Computer has adopted one of the most advanced environmental policies in the catalog industry.

Other industry giants are so wary of our campaign that many have already begun to go greener in order to avoid even a hint of controversy.