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A Common Vision

A Common Vision for Transforming the Paper Industry: Striving for Environmental and Social Sustainability

In November 2002, The Environmental Paper Summit was held in California to discuss the urgent problems of pulp and paper production, consumption and wasting that have many negative environmental and social impacts. At this Summit, several NGOs, including Conservatree, ForestEthics, the Green Press Initiative, and Natural Resources Defense Council, among others, drafted and ratified the "Common Vision" document. This document calls upon the paper industry to adopt precautionary principles with regard to the use of natural resources and chemicals throughout the paper production process, and to refrain from activities that could potentially cause irreparable harm to human health and the environment.

As part of these precautionary principles, Common Vision asks the paper industry to maximize recycled content whenever possible, and to source any remaining virgin wood fibers from FSC-certified forests.

It also addresses other social and environmental issues that FSC is committed to, such as:

• Communities' rights to a healthy environment, workers' rights to beneficial employment, and indigenous' peoples rights to control their traditional lands and protect their cultural identity.
• Ending the clearing of natural forest ecosystems and their conversion into plantation for paper fiber.
• Ending the use of wood fiber that threatens endangered forests.
• Stopping the introduction of paper fiber from genetically modified organisms.

Please click here to download this document in its entirety:  A Common Vision for Transforming the Paper Industry