Procter & Gamble Doubles Down on Forest Degradation

The boreal in Canada holds the largest remaining primary forest on the planet, meaning forest that has not yet been logged or impacted by industrial activity. Primary forests are among the most ecologically important to protect. Yet the forests are being degraded and logged at an alarming rate due, in part, to companies like P&G with its high demand for wood pulp from boreal trees. 

The logging industry in Canada logs more than one million acres of boreal forest a year. Unfortunately, legal protection is lacking. Provinces like Ontario and Quebec are failing to protect threatened species like the boreal caribou. Ontario is eliminating the Endangered Species Act and replacing it with a much weaker policy that does not protect critical habitat. Though the Canadian government touts its forestry practices as sustainable, the forest itself tells a different story with declines in indicator species, increased wildfire and flooding risks, higher carbon emissions, and an increasingly fragmented forest landscape. The severity of these impacts, which indicate that the forest ecosystem is being degraded, is papered over by P&G’s claims that it “keep[s] forests as forests” by supporting tree replanting wherever it sources.  

In the absence of legal requirements, P&G’s competitors, customers, and shareholders have all recognized the need for the marketplace to halt and reverse forest degradation. One major company is proving that more responsible sourcing can be done. Last year, Kimberly-Clark, which is one of P&G’s biggest competitors and makes Cottonelle toilet paper and Kleenex facial tissues, published a new sourcing policy that commits to avoiding both deforestation and forest degradation in its supply chains. The company also announced an ambition to end its use of natural forest fiber in its products. These actions set Kimberly-Clark far ahead of P&G in responsible sourcing. 

Furthermore, for the last five years, P&G has faced significant pushback from its own shareholders for its failure to avoid forest degradation in its supply chain. In 2020, shareholders overwhelmingly supported a proposal calling for the company to act, and since then, many investors—from financial firms like BNP Paribas and Green Century Capital Management to the descendants of P&G’s founders—have continued to press for progress. But P&G’s response to this shareholder pressure was to first imply that it had already prohibited forest degradation in its supply chains and then to remove the mention of forest degradation from its policy entirely, which prompted NRDC to file a complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission asserting that P&G had materially misled its shareholders. 

Recent actions by the Trump administration and U.S. Congress raise even more questions about P&G’s ability to avoid ecologically sensitive and important forests in its supply chain. In addition to the more than 440,000 metric tons that P&G purchases from Canada every year, the company also buys more than 300,000 metric tons from suppliers in the United States.  

President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” for example, requires a dramatic increase in the sale of timber from U.S. public lands. American Forest & Paper Association, the forest industry’s U.S. trade group of which P&G is a member, praised the bill. In conjunction, the Trump administration announced it intends to repeal the Roadless Rule, which will open currently protected forestlands to logging. Because P&G’s new sourcing policy says nothing of forest degradation, the company could very easily purchase pulp that comes from one of these areas once it is legally logged. 

P&G has insisted that it cannot change its practices for fear of impacts on its profit and products. This begs the question: If P&G’s competitors can avoid degrading climate-critical forests, and its shareholders and customers want the company to act, why is P&G doubling down on degradation? 

Forest degradation will create escalating financial risk for companies, threatening the long-term viability of forest-dependent supply chains. P&G’s current business model also puts it at odds with international policies like the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation and creates significant reputational risk. P&G will pay the price of inaction, and its new policy simply kicks the can down the road. 

However, P&G can change. The company just announced a new incoming CEO to take over on January 1, 2026. Shailesh Jejurikar will replace the current CEO, Jon Moeller, who has been in the role for four years. Jejurikar served as the company’s executive sponsor for global sustainability from 2016 to 2021 and oversaw the company’s Fabric & Home Care Sector, which has earned praise for its innovations in sustainability.  

With Jejurikar at the helm, now is the time for P&G to lean into that innovative spirit to protect forests now for a more stable future. Avoiding forest degradation is the right thing to do, both for the planet and for P&G’s long-term success.