Environmental Stewardship

PRACTICING SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY

As one of the world's oldest and largest private timberland owners, we've been growing, harvesting and regrowing forests for more than a century. We have proved working forests can be managed sustainably for a very long time — ensuring our customers have access to a renewable supply of wood while protecting the other important benefits forests provide.

• 1922: Weyerhaeuser donates 5,000 acres of forest for Washington state reforestation experiments.
• 1925: We advocate for legislation to encourage reforestation after harvest — an uncommon practice at the time.
• 1937: We begin research into sustainable-yield forestry, which ensures harvesting does not diminish the forest's ability to provide the timber volume in the future.
• 1938: We are one of the first companies to successfully grow and plant tree seedlings. From this effort, a new crop was born, and Weyerhaeuser's tree-planting era began.
• 1941: We establish the first certified tree farm in the United States, located on 120,000 acres of harvested and fire-burned land in Washington state.
• 1986: We plant our 2 billionth seedling in the blast zone of Mount St. Helens, marking the completion of a massive restoration effort in which we planted 18 million seedlings by hand following the 1980 eruption.
• 1994: We hold town hall meetings in Washington and Oregon attended by more than 2,000 people, who raised ideas, asked pointed questions and leveled criticism at the company. These public meetings were instrumental to the integration of more extensive environmental applications into our management practices.
• 2006: We are one of the first companies to register our timberlands to be certified to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative® Forest Management Standard, a third-party sustainable forestry certification.
• 2013: We achieve 100 percent certification of our timberlands to third-party sustainable forestry standards.
• 2020: We launch our 3 by 30 Sustainability Ambitions, which intensify our commitment to make meaningful progress to help solve three big challenges facing the world — the need to provide climate change solutions, provide more sustainable homes, and support thriving rural communities — by 2030.

Today, we continue to certify 100 percent of our forests to the SFI® Forest Management Standard. We plant about 130 to 150 million seedlings per year in our harvested sites, equivalent to almost four trees per second, and we are transparent about our harvesting and planting metrics.

Back to Environmental Stewardship Overview

PROTECTING BIODIVERSITY 

Our forests are much more than timber: They are thriving, resilient ecosystems that we help steward. All the living things in a forest — from the mightiest trees to the tiniest microbes — interact with each other and with the soil, water and air to form complex ecosystems that support a wide range of plant and animal communities.

The forests we manage host hundreds of native vertebrate species, including large mammals such as deer, elk, cougar, black bear and bobcat, as well as a tremendous diversity of birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, native fish and other aquatic species. Each of these species needs something different from their habitat, including different forest age classes and structures, and other important features such as healthy riparian areas. Since our millions of acres of timberlands contain a range of forest stand ages and structures, along with protected areas around streams and wetlands, these forests support a high level of native biodiversity.

To preserve and protect the ecosystem balance, we regularly conduct biodiversity assessments across all the forests we own and manage in the United States, and in the public forests we manage in Canada. These assessments, which include analyzing species occurrence data and monitoring for the presence of threatened or endangered species, guide and inform our implementation of habitat conservation and species management plans. These practices include leaving buffers along riparian areas, surveying sites for species occurrences prior to harvesting and thinning activities, refraining from harvest during certain times and managing for specific habitats using prescribed burns or thinning harvests.

Because we sustainably manage our forests, we can simultaneously deliver renewable fiber to the market and a myriad of other ecosystem services — such as clean water and recreation opportunities — to surrounding environments and communities.

Back to Environmental Stewardship Overview

Improving Conservation Outcomes 

Ensuring our forests provide habitat features that help us manage for at-risk, sensitive or threatened and endangered species is a core component of our environmental stewardship. We create and preserve critical habitat by implementing best management practices on the lands we own and manage in the United States and the lands we manage in Canada. In the U.S., we also participate in multiple conservation-focused programs, including conservation easements and agreements, mitigation banking, formal Habitat Conservation Plans, recovery and similar arrangements with the U.S. federal government. In Canada, we work with the federal and provincial governments to develop and deliver recovery strategies for species at risk as required by the Species at Risk Act.

Combined with our sustainable forest management practices, conservation easements and other local agreements can enhance the long-term stewardship and protection of wildlife habitat, biodiversity and recreational access. These partnerships are made with a variety of groups and organizations, and they allow us to continue managing our forest resources, which helps protect the economic benefits of our working forests. Habitat Conservation Plans in the U.S. and Species-specific Recovery Plans in Canada provide specific guidance on the protection and enhancement of habitats for threatened and endangered species. We currently participate in HCPs and other conservation agreements in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont and Washington. In Canada, we have species-specific recovery plans in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Saskatchewan and have additional provincially regulated mechanisms for enhancing biodiversity such as wildlife habitat areas and old growth management areas.

Authorized through the U.S. Clean Water Act, mitigation banking allows us to set aside certain areas of our timberlands to preserve, enhance or restore a wetland, stream or other habitat area to compensate for development by another entity in a similar nearby ecosystem. Mitigation banks are regulated and approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a consortium of federal, state and local agencies. We currently operate 16 mitigation banks and projects, primarily in the U.S. South, covering 26,000 acres. Several other projects are in various stages of evaluation and development.

We have more than 3.3 million acres invested in these conservation programs across our Northern, Southern and Western Timberlands, and we are always looking for new opportunities and partnerships to have a beneficial impact on biodiversity and conservation.

Back to Environmental Stewardship Overview

CONTRIBUTING TO CLEAN WATER 

Our forests are critical for providing clean water to communities in our watersheds. The trees, plants and soil absorb rain and snowmelt, filter and then slowly release clean water into the many streams, rivers and groundwater systems on our lands. From harvesting to road building, our sustainable forestry practices safeguard water quality by maintaining our forests' ability to capture and filter water — for people, fish and countless other organisms.

Because our forests rely on natural precipitation (rainwater and snow) to grow, our company’s measurable impact on water use is limited to our wood products manufacturing sites and offices, where water is either recycled or treated on-site, evaporated while products are drying or delivered to a local, publicly owned treatment facility. Even with this minor amount of water use at our mills, we continue to stay focused on reducing water use wherever possible.

We recognize that water risks are a global challenge. Through internal analyses and tracking, we manage water risk at the site level. Based on the World Resources Institute Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, none of our wood products mill locations or U.S. timberlands overlap with areas of high water risk. We conduct this analysis of water risk when new locations are brought into our portfolio, and we periodically revisit our companywide analysis to evaluate whether water risk has changed.

Back to Environmental Stewardship Overview

Storing Carbon

Sustainably managed forests are a critical part of climate change mitigation. As our millions of acres of forests grow, they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it as carbon in their trunks, limbs and roots, as well as in the soil. After our trees are harvested and made into long-lived wood products, much of their carbon remains stored for the life of those products. After harvest, we plant millions more trees, which immediately begin absorbing more CO₂ from the atmosphere, and the next round of wood products store more carbon yet again — all part of an amazing sustainable cycle.

Our managed forests mature quickly and are often able to sequester more carbon than unmanaged forests through faster, continuous rotations, all while maintaining the vast pool of carbon in the forest soil.

When we turn logs into wood products that are used to create buildings, the carbon in those wood products is locked in for the life of the building. In addition to storing carbon, using wood products for construction results in few greenhouse gas emissions because producing wood products requires less energy than producing other non-renewable building materials, such as steel and concrete. Our Carbon Record provides a detailed accounting of the carbon that is sequestered by the forests we manage, and stored in the wood products we make.

Back to Environmental Stewardship Overview

Making Better Energy Choices

We meet about two-thirds of our manufacturing facilities’ energy needs from renewable biomass, using what would otherwise be wood waste either from our forest or manufacturing operations to create our own energy. This approach reduces our reliance on nonrenewable fossil fuels.

We strive to be a leader in energy efficiency, independence and sustainable, cost-efficient operations. Our Energy Strategy Team leads the planning and implementation of the company energy strategy companywide, while at the site level we designate energy champions who are responsible for leading local actions that improve energy efficiency. In addition, we integrate greenhouse gas considerations into our capital planning processes to ensure necessary resources are allocated to reducing our carbon footprint.

To strengthen this effort, we joined the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Plants Program and committed to improving energy efficiency at our manufacturing facilities by 10 percent between 2020 and 2030. We also set a companywide SBTi-approved greenhouse gas reduction goal to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 42 percent within the same period.

We also play a role in other renewable energy solutions. Our timberlands provide an important land base for renewable energy production, such as wind and solar power. And we supply other mills, companies and utilities with woody biomass used to produce renewable, carbon-neutral energy.

Back to Environmental Stewardship Overview

Decreasing Our Emissions

To keep global temperatures from rising to catastrophic levels, the business community must continue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As a company, we continually seek to decrease our contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants such as carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds.

Between 2000 and 2020, we reduced our total greenhouse gas emissions by 57 percent — but we didn’t stop there. In 2021, we set new GHG emission reduction targets that align with the need to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. These ambitious targets include reducing our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 42 percent and our Scope 3 emissions by 25 percent per unit of production by 2030.

To achieve these goals, we are laser-focused on realizing energy efficiency in our mills, increasing our use of renewable energy and working to decrease emissions associated with our timberlands operations. Additionally, we have made significant improvements in reducing other emissions, including capital investments at several mills to implement cleaner-burning units, energy optimization and upgrades to emission-control systems.

Back to Environmental Stewardship Overview

Minimizing Waste

We strive to use as much of each log as possible and continually seek new outlets for our manufacturing byproducts and used equipment.

The primary products we produce are solid lumber, wood panels and engineered wood products. Wood shavings, sawdust, chips and bark – byproducts created during the production process – are sold or delivered to downstream customers who make other useful and essential products. Toilet paper, diapers, paper, cartons, boxes, bags, landscaping mulch and wood pellets are just a few of the countless products made from our wood fiber and forest and mill byproducts. On average, 98 percent of our wood residuals are used to create other products or to generate energy.

Back to Environmental Stewardship Overview

Verifying with certification

To prove our forest management and wood fiber procurement practices are sustainable, we participate in independent certification programs for forest management, fiber sourcing and chain of custody. Our entire portfolio of timberlands is certified to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Forest Management Standard — compared with only 11 percent of the world's forests that are certified today.

Internationally recognized forest certification standards — such as SFI, Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification, the American Tree Farm System and the Forest Stewardship Council — provide customers and stakeholders with an objective, third-party determination of whether companies are implementing sustainable forestry practices and making products that come from legal and well-managed sources. We are vocal supporters of the importance of these standards and the use of independent, third-party audits to verify compliance and promote sustainable forestry around the world.

At Weyerhaeuser, we choose to certify our timberlands and operations to SFI’s standards because they are strong, science-based standards that have effectively pushed forestry in a more sustainable direction. The SFI standards are designed specifically for operations in North America, and we value SFI’s collaborative approach, especially around logger training and the requirement to invest in research and apply it to our operations. Recent updates to the SFI standard include an increased focus on protecting biodiversity, engaging with Indigenous peoples, promoting fire resiliency and mitigating and adapting to climate change.

In addition to our forests, we certify all our manufacturing facilities to the SFI Fiber Sourcing and/or Certified Sourcing standards, and select sites are certified to the SFI and PEFC Chain of Custody standards.

Our Certificates

Forest Management

• U.S. SFI Forest Management Certificate
• Canada SFI Forest Management Certificate

Fiber Sourcing

• U.S. SFI Fiber Sourcing Certificate
• Canada SFI Fiber Sourcing Certificate

Chain of Custody 

• SFI Chain of Custody Certificate
• PEFC Chain of Custody Certificate

Certified Sourcing

• SFI Certified Sourcing Certificate (Secondary Producers)

Back to Environmental Stewardship Overview

Responsible Wood Procurement

On average, we source 39 percent of the wood used to make our products from our own SFI-certified forests, about 11 percent from other certified landowners, and the remaining 49 percent from noncertified landowners — typically small, family-owned forests. Whether wood comes from a certified forest or not, we ensure all the fiber we use to make our products is from legal, noncontroversial and responsible sources.

Our approach to responsible sourcing is guided by our Wood Procurement Policy and our certification to the SFI Fiber Sourcing Standard. This process includes positively influencing the forest practices of the landowners we buy logs from through actions such as requiring best management practices for protecting water quality and wildlife, requiring the use of trained loggers and sharing sustainable forestry information with landowners.