Environmental Partnerships

Kimberly-Clark donated $50,000 to CARE International to support the Sulawesi Participatory Linkages to Appropriate Water Sanitation and Hygiene (SPLASH) project in Indonesia. Kimberly-Clark's donation specifically goes to:

1. Empower village water and sanitation committees to effectively maintain newly installed clean water supply systems and latrines

2. Encourage widespread understanding and adoption of safe personal hygiene practices

3. Increase community participation, particularly among women, in local development planning and decision-making

Kimberly-Clark has donated $550,000 over the last three years to Conservation International for a biodiversity conservation project. The project has environmental benefits for the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, a major global pulp producing region that provides around 30 percent of our fiber.

It helps preserve and restore habitats for endangered species, conserve the most affected areas of the Atlantic Forest, and protect streams and slopes. The project also helps us bring together regional pulp producers and local non-governmental organizations in a coordinated effort to make plantations throughout the region more sustainable.

During 2009 we donated $20,000 to The Forests Dialogue, an independent group that brings together environmental groups and industry to explore sustainable forestry management issues. Attendees include Kimberly-Clark suppliers Aracruz, International Paper, Weyerhaeuser, Stora Enso and Mondi, as well as prominent non-governmental organizations such as WWF, Conservation International, the World Conservation Union, the Forests Peoples Program, Nature Conservancy, the World Resources Institute, the World Bank and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

We support The Forests Dialogue's work that engages stakeholders to address forestry related topics such as illegal logging, plantation forestry, sustainable forestry management and climate change, and tropical rainforest protection.

The National Environmental Education Foundation, the American Meteorological Society and the Weather Channel have partnered on an initiative called Earth Gauge. Kimberly-Clark helped fund this initiative. This program provides television weather programs with basic environmental information for their viewers.

Our $30,000 donation in 2009 helps the organization create a Business Sustainability Education Roundtable to aid in best practices exchanges among environmental NGOs, government agencies and U.S. businesses.

World Resources Institute (WRI) is an environmental think tank that goes beyond research to find practical ways to protect the earth and improve lives. The WRI's mission is to move human society to live in ways that protect our environment and its capacity to provide for the needs of current and future generations.

In 2009, we donated $50,000, which includes support of WRI's U.S. Climate Business Group and its development of a Greenhouse Gases (GHG) Accounting Protocol for Product Supply Chains. WRI is working to develop standard accounting methods for product carbon accounting.

Other regions of the world also contributed to environmental causes.

Peru's national recycling campaign "Recycle me, perform YOUR role" launched in 2009. The campaign was created as an initiative of Kimberly-Clark Peru in strategic alliance with the Paper and Board Committee of the National Society of Industries and supported by the Minister of Environment. During 2009, recycled paper generated in Peru increased by 52 percent compared to 2008. Currently, about 70 percent of paper in Peru can be recycled, but only 15 percent is recycled. As a result, Kimberly-Clark has invested nearly $5 million from 2008 to 2009 to import recycled fiber from other countries. The campaign increases recycled fiber availability in Peru and reduces costs to Kimberly-Clark for importing recycled fiber.

Kimberly-Clark companies in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador are driving paper recycling programs in support of a developing recycling culture. These programs include educational activities, paper recycling campaigns and establishing recycling collection centers for schools, communities, consumers, universities and companies.

Folks in Costa Rica are creating a recycling culture through the AmbientaDOS campaign, an alliance with a local broadcaster that encourages audiences to bring recycling material to collection centers provided by Kimberly-Clark. More than 200 tons of plastic, glass, aluminum and paper have been recycled, along with an estimated 95 tons of electronic waste material.

In El Salvador, the Las 9 vidas del papel recycling campaign was created in order to raise awareness about the importance and benefits of recycling paper.

Kimberly-Clark Central America provides tree seeds in exchange for paper. The seeds are sown in areas that have been severely damaged or that are now part of a restoration process.

Reforestation campaigns are happening throughout Central America, and they have had positive impacts on the environment. Kimberly-Clark Panama, for example, supports the Autoridad del Canal de Panama (The Canal Regulating Authority of Panama), in order to plant trees along the Canal's shore. This initiative helps protect the basin and ensures healthy water flow. And in Costa Rica, Kimberly-Clark has delivered more than 7,000 seeds to the Municipality of San Jose for the Urban Forest (Bosque Urbano).

El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua are also implementing reforestation plans in parks, rivers and school grounds. This heightened sense of awareness has resulted in more than 10,000 tree-plantings throughout the region.

In 2008 and 2009, Kimberly-Clark China collaborated with The Jane Goodall Institute China on 3R Better Life and Saving Water - Saving our Planet Environment Protection campaigns in Beijing. The intent is to motivate young people to improve their environment by reducing, reusing and recycling daily trash and saving limited water resources. The three-month program involves more than 40 primary schools in Beijing.

Yuhan-Kimberly in Korea operates its Keep Korea Green campaign where employees and other volunteers have planted more than 39 million trees. More than 60 percent of Yuhan-Kimberly employees volunteer their time for civic and environmental programs. As a result, the company is widely praised for its environmental efforts and has been recognized as one of the most admired companies in Korea for the past five years.