Paperlinx Green Shareholders' Group

Many shareholders are concerned not only for the financial performance of their investments, but also for associated environmental and social performance.

PaperlinX is a major Australian company, an important employer, and adds substantial value to the products it sells.

PaperlinX manufactures products that are essential to consumers, business and industry.
It is owner of Spicers Paper which is the major importer of paper from Indonesia.

As PaperlinX shareholders we are anxious for the financial health of our company, our share price, our dividends, and franking credits.

We are also anxious for PaperlinX' long term viability, and the security of its employees.

We would like to see board and management share in the gains, and the pains, of shareholders and employees.

Photo: Strzeleckis, College Creek Rainforest, 1998, Copyright Elaina Fraser

As members of the public we have concerns regarding:

the rate of destruction of the little remaining native forest in our largely desert continent,
the effects on the creatures and plants dependent upon our forests,
the losses of quality and quantity of water flowing from catchments as a result of logging,
erosion and loss of nutrients from the soil as a result of logging practices, which contribute to silting and algal infection of our rivers and the Gippsland Lakes,
workplace and local health and safety as affected by production processes,
the nature and quantity of waste material, solid and liquid, created by industrial processes,
the amount of used paper waste we create, and the increasing difficulties of recycling and dumping it, .
increasing restrictions on the type and quantity of paper accepted and used for recycling.

The group formed in 1997 because of worries by some shareholders' and superannunation holders over the rate at which public native forests are being clear felled for chips and pulp, and the effects of this on our water catchments.

At the same time we found that our Municipal Councils are being forced to be more selective in picking up our used paper for recycling.

More sustainable choices and technologies are needed if PaperlinX, the industry, our forests and water catchments are to survive in the longer term. Some overseas paper manufacturers seem to be doing better in moving to more sustainable and environmentally sensitive processes. We would like to see our company moving in a planned manner, and more quickly, towards similar processes.

The group seeks to encourage our company to actively move towards world's best practice by:

reducing its dependence on native forest, making more use of already extensive plantation,
choosing production processes which are kind to our environment,
making more extensive use of a wider range of recycled paper as a major source of fibre, supplementing this as needed with timber grown in plantations established on already cleared land, not from native forest.

We seek also to improve the level of government support for improvements to recycling, processes, timber growing and logging practices.

To learn more about the background to our concerns please click here.

To contact us please click here