manufacturer, which opens it up to a number of issues regarding sustainability. This paper will review Kimberley Clark's approach to sustainability, based on information presented in the company's 2015 Sustainability Report, and understanding of the key issues surrounding sustainability in general. Sustainability

Kimberley Clark produces a periodic sustainability report, and the last one was produced in 2015. The production of these reports is voluntary for business, and the content contained within them is also voluntary. In general, production of a sustainability report is an important step towards transparency and accountability in the sustainability practices of a business. The 2015 report sets out the company's strategy through 2022, and recaps the outcomes of the last strategy, which ran from 2010 to 2015.

There are several major impacts on the environment that arise from KC's business. The first is the forestry activities that produce the logs that are turned into paper. The company's prior strategy focused on partnership with the Forest Stewardship Council, and increasing the amount of FSC-certified virgin fiber in the company's tissue products. This went from 7% to 75% during the span of this report, showing the changes that the company made to its supply chain during the study period. The impacts on forests for the coming years are going to focus on reducing the "natural forest footprint" in the products by 50%. The report claims FSC is a high standard, but does not provide details as to what this actually means. They do, however, elaborate on their strategy to reduce the forest footprint of their products, and this largely involves the use of non-forest fibers. The company intends to invest in labs that can investigate the use of "algae, and prickly, dry forms of plantlife" (p.14) in its products.

The key metrics that KC uses are the amount of FSC-certified forest products it uses as a percentage of total...

The company has not been awarded for its forestry practices, though it has won awards in other categories of its corporate social responsibility program.
It is also worth mentioning that the company has a waste/recycling program. Paper, of course, is one of the waste products that is frequently recycled, so this is a natural for the company. It notes, however, that it has also diverted 95.6% of manufacturing waste from landfills by 2015, and has targeted zero waste for its 2022 goal in this regard. Further, it views recyclables as a value creation mechanism. To this end, the company has set a target for 2022 to have cumulatively diverted 150,000 tons of post-consumer product and packaging waste (p.16). The company has waste reduction programs across its large network of facilities, in North America, Europe, ANZ and in Latin America.

Further, it has initiatives pertaining to the climate. KC has targeted the elimination of 1,000,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from their 2005 baseline. Their factories have adopted LEAN energy management, and many utilize alternative energy. For example, biomass is a byproduct of production and can be used as fuel to provide energy. The company also harnesses gas from landfills as another means of powering its facilities, enough to power 12,000 homes per year (p.17). And its waste reduction initiatives also focus on the supply chain

Community Engagement

Kimberley Clark's strongest area is in community engagement, as the company has sponsored a number of different initiatives around the world. It outlines several of these in its sustainability report. One is the Toilets Change Lives program, where in partnership with non-profit organizations, the company is seeking to improve…