A study in China’s north western Qinling Mountains, home to around 270 pandas – about a fifth of the world’s wild population – predicts a “substantial” bamboo decline this century as the globe warms. But Kimberley Clark is banking of bamboo – obviously not the Panda’s favourite variety – to be the focus in the company’s alternative fiber strategy.  Read more

Channel News Asia (12 November 2012):

PARIS: Their numbers already threatened by a slow breeding rate and rapid habitat loss, China’s endangered giant pandas now also risk losing their staple food, bamboo, to climate change, a report said Sunday.

A study in China’s north western Qinling Mountains, home to around 270 pandas – about a fifth of the world’s wild population – predicts a “substantial” bamboo decline this century as the globe warms.

“The pandas may face a shortage of food unless they can find alternative food resources,” a team of researchers from the United States and China warn in the journal Nature Climate Change.

The international symbol of environmental conservation efforts, the giant panda is a picky eater.

Ninety-nine percent of its diet consists of bamboo – devouring up to 38 kilograms (84 pounds) per day. This means the iconic black-and-white bear’s survival is closely linked to a thriving bamboo habitat.

Bamboo itself also has a slow reproductive rate, flowering only every 30 to 35 years, which means it would be slow to adapt to a change in local climate, said a statement on the research.

Based on the data gathered for this study, researchers predict that three bamboo species which make up almost the entire diet of the Qinling pandas, will all but disappear in a warmer climate.

“Results suggest that almost the entire panda habitat in the region may disappear by the end of the 21st century,” said the study report.

The calculations are based on different warming scenarios projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – ranging from rises of two to five degrees Celsius (35.6 to 41 degrees Fahrenheit) in summer by century’s end, and three to eight degrees C in winter.

These projections were collated with data on rainfall and greenhouse gas emissions as well as historical growth patterns, to consider the future of bamboo.

Already, deforestation is threatening the survival of about half of all bamboo species worldwide.

The researchers say bamboo distribution has historically fluctuated in response to changes in the climate.

In the modern era, though, even if other areas were to become climatically more suited for bamboo growth, these would be far away and fall outside the present network of protected panda reserves.

The findings should be used “for proactive planning to protect areas that have a better climatic chance of providing adequate food sources or begin creating natural ‘bridges’ to allow pandas an escape hatch from bamboo famine,” the statement said.

Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

Why Kimberly-Clark is banking on bamboo

By Kristine A. Wong in Green Biz (9 November 2012):

When Kimberly-Clark announced its plan to source 50 percent of its wood fiber to non-wood sources by 2025 — more than the amount that’s in three billion rolls of toilet paper — the company wasn’t quite sure how it would make that happen.

It’s a tall order, even for the one of the world’s top suppliers of facial tissue, toilet paper and paper towels.

“We don’t know how we’re going to get there yet,” Brenda Nelson, a director of business planning and sustainability for the company, told GreenBiz. “It’s not like there was a lot of precision around number and years,” she said of the pledge made in June.

So why would Kimberly-Clark, best known for its Kleenex, Huggies and Scott brand products, commit to an actual deadline? After all, Walmart famously announced goals to become 100 percent supplied by renewable energy and create zero waste — yet failed to disclose a timeline.

Like the advice given to Benjamin, the young man searching for a future in the 1967 film “The Graduate,” the answer lies in one word.

Kimberly-Clark is banking on bamboo.

“We did enough research on the fibers and potential barriers to know that it’s achievable,” Nelson said. “2025 was a date we put out there to hold ourselves accountable to make it happen.”

Mitigating risk

In 2011, Kimberly-Clark used 3.53 million metric tons of fiber to manufacture its products, according to company figures. Less than one-third of that amount – 1.05 million metric tons — came from recycled sources, the company reported.

Eighty percent of Kimberly-Clark’s product line contains wood fiber. Its primary sources are from the U.S., Brazil and Canada. In a 2011 report, the company describes itself as “highly reliant” on the material.

In the last few years, Kimberly-Clark has been hunting for a commercially viable alternative to wood fiber. In 2009, the company adopted a procurement policy requiring 40 percent of its fiber to be sourced either from FSC-certified or recycled sources by 2011. The move brought an end to a five-year campaign by Greenpeace pressuring the company to cut its ties with suppliers hawking non FSC-certified wood. The policy also banned the use of any fiber from endangered species.

But the motivation for the search extends beyond environmental reasons, Nelson says. It’s also an effort to insulate the company from a fiber market marked by volatile prices and a dwindling supply.

“We’ve taken a long look at what are the outlook and trends in virgin and recycled fiber supply,” she says. “There’s increasing pressures and demand on land that’s available. We know that where there’s constraints in terms of resources, we’ll someday have business impacts associated with them.”

To build the business case for alternative fibers, Nelson’s team examined a whole range of characteristics for several materials including bamboo and wheat straw, a product left over from wheat farming. They looked at fiber characteristics, biomass available, processing requirements and whether the infrastructure needed for processing was available. The group also identified barriers to commercializing the materials, along with broader trends that could affect the supply.

After a year of initial R&D tests, bamboo appears to have become the focus in the company’s alternative fiber strategy. Kimberly Clark is also evaluating other candidates, Nelson said, but declined to disclose more information.

Source: www.greenbiz.com