Home Depot has made “impressive” progress in removing unsustainable wood products from its shelves but has failed to lead the market away from old growth wood, according to the Rainforest Action Network.
The group was responding to a Home Depot report charting its efforts to stop selling wood products from environmentally-sensitive areas.
The company, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, promised in 1999 to remove certain types of lauan, redwood and cedar products following protests by green groups.
It has reduced Indonesian lauan purchases by 70% and is now buying its redwood from two companies committed to sustainable forestry.
But the store, which sells US$5bn of lumber, plywood, doors and windows a year, does not plan to stop importing lauan, believing it can help sustainable forestry in Indonesia by continuing to do business there.
The Rainforest Action Network says while Home Depot’s sales of FSC products have dramatically increased, it has not yet used its power to lead change in the forest products industry and force loggers with bad environmental track records out of endangered forests. The group hints store protests could start up again.
