Nicole Rycroft and Markets Initiative
July 17, 2006
By Nicole Zummach
VANCOUVER, BC // The Harry Potter series is popular with children and adults alike, which is one of the reasons they are bestsellers worldwide. If you bought your edition in Canada, however, you can also give yourself a pat on the back for supporting the Canadian publisher who made the choice to print the novels on paper that did not contain fibre from old-growth or endangered forests. The reason the publisher could do that is because of the efforts of Nicole Rycroft and her organization, Markets Initiative. Since 1999, Rycroft has been working with Canadian publishers, helping them to make more environmentally sound choices when it comes to the paper they print on.
It hasn't been an easy task, considering that when Rycroft first approached publishers there were no papers available that did not contain wood fibre from ancient or endangered forests. Today, more than 160 book, magazine, and newspaper publishers have taken up the cause and paper mills now provide dozens of ancient forest friendly options. In 2003, Rycroft was selected as an Ashoka Fellow, something that not only helped her organization financially, but also gave the initiative worldwide recognition. CharityVillage spoke with her about the important work of Markets Initiative, the successes and the challenges, and where she is setting her sights for the future.
CharityVillage: Markets Initiative has accomplished so much in its seven years of operation. How did it get started?
Nicole Rycroft: I started Markets Initiative in 1999. I had volunteered on environmental projects in Australia, and then volunteered on some environmental and human rights projects in Southeast Asia. When I arrived in North America it felt like I was arriving in the belly of the beast, because of all the consumption that takes place here. And given the legacy of forests that Canada has, especially in the global context with less than 20% of the world's original large tracts of forest remaining intact, a quarter of which are in Canada, it felt like such an incredible opportunity to work to change the system.
Paper, like so many other things, is an integrated part of the global economy. So, companies in North America are buying papers that have fibre in them from the Amazon, from the Indonesian rainforest, from the Russian boreal, as well as from the Canadian boreal forest and the coast of British Columbia. It felt like it was time to start doing something.
CV: You definitely subscribe to the 'go big or go home' philosophy, taking on the whole publishing industry for starters. What are you working on right now?
NR: Partly the same. Basically, we are working to help the book, magazine, and newspaper publishing industries to shift their paper purchasing and consumption practices away from using papers that contain endangered forest fibre. By supporting those three industries, we work back through their entire supply chain - the printers, the paper mills, and the logging companies. Our focus is on really trying to garner more support from the publishing industry; so have more publishers sign on and actually commit and develop polices that shift them away from using endangered forest fibre, and then supporting them in being able to implement those policies that they make. That means working through the supply chain to make sure that printers are stocking papers that are suitable for them, that have environmental qualities, and that mills are actually manufacturing papers that have less endangered forest fibre in them, and eventually no endangered forest fibre in them at all.
CV: What sort of reception do you get from the companies you approach, given that the environment is probably not at the top of their agenda?
NR: It's not the core of their business, that's for sure. The response varies from company to company and from one publisher to another. As a whole, publishers are generally very aware of the context within which their business operates. They are obviously very aware that they use a lot of paper and most of them are aware that it's probably having a significant impact on forests somewhere. I think most publishers assume that in the 21st century we're probably at a place where the majority of paper is made from recycled fibre or plantation wood fibre. But that's not the case. In fact, 71% of the world's paper comes from ecologically rich and biologically diverse forests. In the Canadian context, given that 90% of the logging that takes place in Canada is still in old-growth or ancient forest ecosystems, it means that the vast majority of fibre that's going into paper is coming from ancient or endangered forest ecosystems.
I certainly found that shocking, and I think most publishers find it a little jarring. So, on the whole, most publishers are actually interested and engaged. We haven't had many publishers actually say they're not interested or that they don't care. Some are very proactive, while others are with us in principle. But they all have business considerations, obviously, so it needs to be easy for them to make the shift. We have to spend a lot of time proving that the economics of it can work.
CV: What are some of the biggest challenges you've had to tackle in getting publishers onside?
NR: Most of the publishers will come back to us with the same three challenges that they have to navigate around as a company: price, quality and availability. For example, when we first started working with the book publishing sector there were no ancient forest friendly papers available; there were no papers at all that were free of endangered forest fibre. So, to ask publishers to actually make a commitment to something that just did not exist at that time really speaks to the vision of those early book publishers and the book publishing industry as a whole. They were willing to take ownership of their responsibility as major consumers of paper and seized the opportunity to help create a different supply chain.
Now, there are thirteen ancient forest friendly papers available for book publishers, and probably another twenty book papers that have some sort of environmental quality. That didn't exist when we first started. And there has been a similar kind of increase in the number of papers that are available for magazine publishers as well.
CV: It's easy to see why you recently received Canadian Geographic's Gold 'Canadian Environment Award for Sustainable Living' for your work. What can the average person do to support this cause in his or her own community?
NR: There is a lot that individuals can do. I think that is one of the beauties of our work. It really does enable Canadians to have more choice with environmental products, whether it's disposable diapers, or the junk mail that ends up on our doorsteps, or the magazines that we buy, or the books and magazines we read. Five years ago, when we went into a bookstore we didn't get to choose between a book that was printed on paper that is helping to safeguard the natural legacy our country has and one printed on conventional paper that probably came from an endangered ecosystem. But today, there are thousands of titles appearing in bookstores that are printed on ancient forest friendly paper. And the same is true for magazines. What that means is that, as an individual, when I go to the bookstore or newsstand I can actually look to see which publications are printed on ancient forest friendly paper. As an ethical consumer, that can be part of my purchasing decision.
CV: How did becoming an Ashoka Fellow impact the work you are doing?
NR: Being an Ashoka Fellow has been a really rich experience. Ashoka is an amazing organization and I haven't met an Ashoka Fellow that I haven't been amazed by - their work, their vision, their commitment and their creativity. For Markets Initiative as an organization, it was an incredible gift because it provided a level of recognition to a relatively new organization. Definitely, the profile was very helpful for us. And having three years of committed salary support is certainly something no organization in their first couple of years is likely to turn down. Just to have that level of stable funding support, a stable financial base within the organization was great.
The other piece is the people - coming together with other fellows and being able to hear about what's happening in other sectors. As much as I might try as an individual not to get caught in my silo, it's just one of those things. When you are working obsessively on an issue you tend to become a little isolated from the rest of the world. And we have so many lessons to learn from each other. Ashoka is a really rich, creative melting pot. That's something that has been a big asset for me personally, and Markets Initiative as an organization.
For more information about Markets Initiative, visit: www.marketsinitiative.org.
To learn more about Ashoka, visit: www.ashoka.org/us-canada/main/canada.cfm.
