PRESS RELEASE

Weyerhaeuser’s Eco Lies Exposed at U.S. Green Builders Conference

For Immediate Release:

November 15, 2006

Weyerhaeuser’s false claims of “green” building products and support of SFI attack on LEED standards blackens Green Building reputation

SAN FRANCISCO- Representatives from the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) will attend the U.S. Green Building Council annual conference in Denver this week to inform green building professionals about recent efforts by the logging industry to weaken green building standards and mislead builders about the environmental qualities of their products.

“We commend builders for trying to build a more sustainable future, even as Weyerhaeuser and other logging industry insiders are misleading homebuyers and undercutting legitimate green building standards,” said Brant Olson, RAN’s Old Growth Campaign Director. “With all the rhetoric flying around, builders need to know how to separate facts on the ground from logging industry fiction.”

Consumer activists will welcome conference attendees with posters depicting massive clear-cuts in the Canadian Boreal Forest that supply Weyerhaeuser with wood chips for its Timberstrand LSL building products. Despite nearly eliminating local populations of Woodland Caribou—a threatened species in Canada—Weyerhaeuser calls the products “an excellent environmental choice.”

Grassy Narrows First Nation, an Indigenous community that depends on the area for hunting, fishing and other cultural activities, opposes Weyerhaeuser’s practices. The community made international headlines in July by blocking the Trans-Canada Highway to impede logging within the community’s traditional territory near Kenora, Ontario, and to stop Weyerhaeuser from turning the community’s forests into more “green” building products.

RAN will also be inside the conference asking green builders to help defend LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building standards from attacks by the American Forest and Paper Association and other industry trade groups that represent unsustainable products like Timberstrand LSL that are currently excluded from recognition under the nationally accepted benchmark standard for green building.

For more information, visit the new and improved DontBuySFI.com or FreeGrassy.org.

Rainforest Action Network runs hard-hitting campaigns to break America’s oil addiction, protect endangered forests and indigenous rights, and stop destructive investments around the world through education, grassroots organizing, and non-violent direct action.