Kimberly-Clark annual shareholder meeting in Dallas, Texas. We drive up to the hotel in our rental car, waiting in the long line of cars to get into the hotel compound where Kimberly-Clark is holding their annual meeting. This is the first time in years that Kimberly-Clark’s meeting has been held away from their headquarters.
As we drive by the guard booth at the entrance the guard speaks into his radio: “Silver car – check.” We look up and see police sharpshooters on the roof of the hotel peering at us through telescopes.
I walk into the swanky hotel lobby of the Four Seasons with my fellow campaigner at Greenpeace USA, Pam Wellner and Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, our partners in this campaign. It feels like all eyes are on our little group as we mingle with the shareholders and I am greeted by name by Steven Kemps, one of Kimberly-Clark’s senior counsels. I wonder how many times emails of my photo have been circulated on Kimberly-Clark’s computers with the heading “Watch out for this guy – he wants ancient forests protected.”
Mr. Kemps is quite gracious in allowing us to hand out our materials to shareholders and explains to us the process for making statements and posing questions to the Board and the CEO, Thomas Falk. We’ll be polite this time around.
I shake some hands, chat about the weather with Dave Dickson, the communications director of Kimberly-Clark and former head of communications for Exxon-Mobil. When I ask him why the meeting has been moved from the Kimberly-Clark headquarters, he replies: “We didn’t know what to expect from you.” That explains the sharpshooters and the football player cops standing on guard in the corner of the room.
While this meet and greet is going on, another band of stalwart activists are with Greenpeace’s Kleercut truck touring busy shopping centers and public plazas in Dallas and Irving Texas. Educating hundreds of consumers and shoppers is dangerous and risky work. That explains the 5 cop cars that follow them around.
Meanwhile back inside the meeting….
“We will continue to be a leader in sustainable forestry. Thank you for your interest in Kimberly-Clark.”
And with that, in answer to my question about what Kimberly-Clark is going to do to protect forests, Thomas Falk, the CEO of Kimberly-Clark, branded himself as a PR machine that can talk the good talk. Unfortunately when it comes down to the substance of the words and what’s happening on the ground, the story is quite different.
Sustainable? Only if sustainable means no trees, no wildlife habitat, no forest.
“Innovation and Action: Our customers are more and more sophisticated and we are putting our customers, shoppers and users front and center.”
Front and center in the middle of a clearcut it seems. With consumers in North America increasingly look at a product’s environmental characteristics before they purchase it, why is Kimberly-Clark continuing to destroy ancient forests to create disposable tissue products? According to the 2004 Cone Citizenship Study, 90% of North Americans would consider switching to a competitor’s products if they discovered a company was behaving illegally or unethically. 80% said they would sell their investments. Why then is Kimberly-Clark, a company that cares about its customers, selling ancient forest destruction? I don’t know.
Why not ask Mr Falk and the Board of Kimberly-Clark?
Any good news?
There’s always some good news at an annual meeting like this one. Drumroll please… Kimberly-Clark now produces a line of throwaway picnic blankets. It matches their throw away paper towels and napkins. Finished eating your picnic lunch? Why not just wrap up the paper plates and napkins in the disposable blanket and dump in the trash. Kimberly-Clark is also expanding into new countries that hold over half the world’s population. Vive the Tissue Paper Revolution!
What about the REAL good news?
We spoke with some of Directors of Kimberly-Clark and Mr. Falk and it is clear that they are receiving the message that this campaign isn’t just going to go away and in fact the campaign is reverberating at the highest levels within Kimberly-Clark. But they aren’t yet willing to take significant action to reduce Kimberly-Clark’s impact on ancient forests like the Boreal. That means we need to increase the pressure. You can do this now.
Want to do more? Download a Kleercut Action Pack and start organizing in your community.
