President & CEO Message
A MESSAGE FROM DAN FULTON:
The last few years have brought both challenge and change for Weyerhaeuser. We adopted a corporate structure that allows us to be a more tax-efficient and competitive owner, manager and buyer of timberlands. The ongoing economic downturn has required the focused attention of all our employees to improve performance and position us for success no matter what kind of markets we encounter. We’ve made excellent progress, but we have more to do. We will continue to take decisive action to strengthen and grow our company in a sustainable way.
As we navigate these short-term challenges, we will not lose sight of our long-term vision to use the renewable natural resources we manage to deliver superior sustainable solutions to the world. In fact, in 2010, our senior management team and board of directors approved a new sustainability strategy that nearly doubles the number of commitments and targets we intend to reach by 2020. Using the Ceres Roadmap to Sustainability and external benchmarks, we identified gaps and developed a more integrated and holistic set of goals and targets to drive sustainability further into our core business processes.
As always, we will share our results annually on this website. For 2011, there are a number of areas for which we can already report progress. For example, our gap analysis identified the need for stronger board governance over sustainability matters. As an immediate result, our board governance committee changed its name to include “corporate responsibility” and expanded its charter to ensure more direct engagement and oversight of our sustainability strategy. We also refreshed our company vision to strengthen its connection to our sustainability strategy. To further drive that connection, our businesses have aligned their scorecard metrics with our three sustainability pillars — performance, people and planet.
As we work to make progress against the new goals we’ve set, we will continue to deliver against the goals we’ve long held dear. In the communities where we operate, for example, our employees gave 14,127 hours of their time in 2010 to support 113 important projects through our community volunteer programs. And I’m especially proud that in response to the combined earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan, our company, board of directors and employees together contributed more than $560,000 to support relief efforts under way for affected communities in Japan, an important partner for Weyerhaeuser since 1923.
In 2011, FORTUNE magazine named Weyerhaeuser the most admired forest products company in the world. In our industry, we ranked first for innovation, use of corporate assets, social responsibility, long-term investment and quality of products and services. In addition, out of all 350 companies named, we tied for tenth place in social responsibility.
This recognition reflects our commitment to do what it takes to reach the always-rising bar for sustainability performance on the world stage. But we know it is not enough to say we are sustainable. We are determined to prove it with continuous progress toward tangible goals that will ensure the long-term health of our company, communities and the planet we share.
I invite you to browse through this online sustainability report to learn more about our sustainability story, commitments and results.
Dan Fulton
President and CEO Weyerhaeuser Company
