Here is a summary of our sustainable fiber procurement and usage in 2008.

Recycled fiber

Of the fiber used in all K-C manufactured products in 2008, about 27 percent was recycled . About 31 percent of the fiber used to manufacture tissue products was recycled. We bought 92 percent of virgin fiber from suppliers, and made the remaining 8 percent in our own mills in Everett, Washington, U.S. from wood chips from local suppliers and Tantanoola, Australia from wood chips and logs bought from local suppliers.

Certified fiber

We continue to work toward our goal to purchase 100 percent of our wood fiber from suppliers who have certified their fiber procurement activities and forestlands. In 2008, 98 percent of the wood pulp we bought for global consumption came from suppliers or forestlands certified to one of the five schemes listed in our fiber procurement policy. Seven pulp suppliers, accounting for the remaining two percent of virgin fiber purchases, were not certified, although they do practice sustainable forest management and are plantation based.

We became a member of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) in 2008. The FSC is an independent, non-governmental, not for profit organization established to promote the responsible management of the world’s forests. FSC is the developer of our preferred fiber certification scheme. We continue to work toward increasing the available supply of fiber from FSC-certified suppliers and the amount of fiber from FSC-certified suppliers that we purchase. This year, 13 percent of the fiber we purchased was from FSC certified suppliers, compared with 6 percent in 2007.

Increasing the amount of fiber we buy from FSC-certified Canadian suppliers has reduced our use of fiber from the Canadian Boreal forest. By the end of 2008, we had reduced our use of fiber from this area by nearly 50% compared to 2004. The Canadian Boreal fiber we do use is sourced only from areas included in forest management plans approved by provincial governments. All our Canadian Boreal fiber suppliers are certified to one of three standards - FSC, CSA or SFI.

Supplier audits

We audit all our fiber suppliers every three to four years. Our goal for 2008 was to audit 20 suppliers to verify compliance with our fiber procurement policy. We actually assessed 18 suppliers during the year. We rescheduled the remaining two audits for early in 2009 as a result of a mill shut down at one supplier and because political unrest in Thailand prevented another.

We found no major non-compliance with our fiber procurement policy at the 18 suppliers audited in 2008. Sixteen of these suppliers have third-party forest management certification. The remaining two have completed the pre-assessment audits required for third-party certification and are addressing the gaps identified. We expect both suppliers to achieve certification by the end of 2009.

Certified and recycled products

Several KCP products comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s recycled fiber standards.

In 2008, Andrex bath tissue became our second FSC-labeled brand in the U.K., following the certification of Kleenex facial tissue in 2007 . We also produce FSC-labeled product for major retail customers in Europe . We plan to expand the availability of FSC-labeled Kleenex tissue across Europe in 2009 and to launch a range of Kimberly-Clark Professional FSC-labeled products in Europe in 2009.

In North America, K-C Professional has launched several Green Seal -certified products made from 100 percent recycled fiber, as this certification is a common requirement of customers in the region .

In 2008, we launched Neve Naturali – the first 100 percent recycled fiber bath tissue in Brazil. This complements the existing Neve brand, the leading bath tissue in the country, which is made with certified virgin fiber. In Brazil, all our consumer tissue products made with virgin fiber carry the Green Seal logo. This is a Brazilian scheme which verifies that the supplier providing the wood fiber in products is certified by the FSC or CERFLOR. The Brazilian Green Seal is separate from Green Seal in North America, and has different requirements.

We continue to communicate our progress on sustainable fiber procurement in this report and other specific communications such as our sustainable fiber fact sheet.

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