Tokyo, July 29, 2002 - Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd., Japan's leading paper and pulp manufacturing company and the core member of Nippon Unipac Holding Group, announced that it obtained ISO 14001 certification on July 10, 2002, for forest management in South Africa. ISO 14001 is an international standard for environmental management systems. It provides a certification framework under which organizations such as forestry companies promote continual improvements in their efforts to address environmental aspects. When applied to forestry management, it certifies that a company is aiming to achieve sustainable forest management and ISO14001 is held by many companies worldwide as a forestry certification.

 

Nippon Paper Industries jointly operates an overseas afforestation project (managed locally by Forest Resources Pty. Ltd.) in Kuwa-Zulu-Natal Province, South Africa with Sumitomo Corp. and local woodchip supplier Central Timber Co-operative Ltd. (CTC). The area of the plantation comprises 4,500 hectares. Nippon Paper Industries has been importing woodchips from trees on this ground as a self-produced wood resource since 1997. Concurrently CTC's plantation forest and its woodchip mill were certified with ISO14001as well as Nippon Paper Industries' plantation forest.

 

In recent years, forestry certification systems in which sustainable forest management initiatives are certified by third-party organizations have been established and implemented in many countries and regions. Nippon Paper Industries recognizes that afforested areas serve as sustainable managed forests and the company has been promoting the use of plantation trees as resources. In addition, for Regrowth forests, the company conducts procurement of wood resources only from appropriately managed forests for which environmental conservation is implemented and the forests' economical and social aspects are maintained. Meanwhile, Nippon Paper Industries is continuing to make steady progress in conducting afforestaion projects in areas such as Australia, Chile, South Africa, and China, and is trying to acquire the most apt forestry certification that suits plantations in each of these regions.

 

As for the company's use of wood resources from plantation trees, the ongoing Tree Farm Initiative being promoted under the Nippon Paper Industries' Environmental Charter is aimed at a sustainable supply of hardwood chips and has the following two main objectives;

1) planting more than 100,000 hectares by 2008,

2) raising the ratio of hardwood chips produced from plantation trees from around the globe to more than 70% of all imported hardwood chips by 2008.

By the end of last year, the company had already planted in excess of 40,000 hectares in overseas locations. As a result, in 2008 the company is expected to be able to achieve afforestation of approximately 110,000 hectares - exceeding its initial target - and to be able to boost the above-mentioned hardwood chip ratio to around 80% for the entire Group.