Kimberly-Clark Reports Continued Progress toward Sustainability

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Kimberly-Clark Corp., Dallas, Texas, USA, reports that in 2009 it continued to make progress toward its economic, environmental, and social responsibility commitments according to its seventh annual sustainability report, Choices for a Sustainable Future. The report was recently issued and highlights the company's numerous achievements, such as improving energy efficiency by 3.7% since 2005, reducing water usage by 13 million cubic meters, contributing $22.7 million to charitable causes worldwide, and forming new relationships with environmental groups such as Greenpeace.

"Our progress in 2009 reflects the hard work of our employees worldwide in helping to integrate sustainable business practices into everything we do," said Suhas Apte, VP of global sustainability at K-C. "While we are proud of our efforts, we realize that sustainability is an area in which our work will never be done. Our latest report shares our accomplishments of the past year and sets the stage for our future initiatives that are in the works for 2010."

As part of the sourcing standards it developed with Greenpeace in August 2009, K-C sought to use 40% of either recycled fiber or FSC-certified fiber in all of its North American tissue products by the end of 2011. Due to unusually favorable fiber sourcing conditions and additional FSC-certified fiber that became available in 2009, the company surpassed this goal two years ahead of schedule with a total combined usage of 43.6%.

K-C's commitment to sustainability has enabled it to lead the personal products category in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for five consecutive years. The company has ranked in the top 1% of the more than 4,000 companies analyzed by GovernanceMetrics International for its corporate governance standards and has received sustained recognition from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In particular, the EPA has honored K-C with the Energy Star Partner of the Year award for the second consecutive year, SmartWay Transportation Excellence award for the third consecutive year, and it ranked first on the agency's On-Site port.