New York Times Ad Escalates Environmental Campaign Against Victoria's Secret

San Francisco – An advertisement in today’s The New York Times intensified the pressure against Victoria’s Secret for continuing to print 395 million catalogs annually, predominately on paper that is made directly from forests. The ad is the second that ForestEthics has run in the Times this year. Like the first ad, the new ad features a lingerie-clad model holding a cartoon chainsaw.

Two years of research by ForestEthics has found that approximately 25% of the paper in Victoria’s Secret catalogs comes directly from North America’s Great Boreal Forest. Stretching across Canada from Alaska to the Atlantic Ocean, the Great Boreal Forest is part of a green halo of forest encircling the planet. The size of 13 Californias, the Boreal is a gigantic forest – one of the three largest remaining on earth – and is an important regulator of global climate.

“Victoria’s Secret has proven their prowess at marketing unneeded items like diamond-encrusted panties. Imagine what they could do if they chose to embrace and market something that catastrophes like Katrina and Wilma have shown is sorely needed: environmental leadership. Companies like Victoria’s Secret literally have the power to transform the way that we treat critical natural resources like the Great Boreal Forest, protecting them for generations to come,” said Dan Howells of ForestEthics.

Logging in the Boreal releases half the amount of global warming pollution as all the vehicles in California. (If California were a country, it would be the 10th largest contributor to global warming.) (Source: INVENTORY OF CALIFORNIA GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS AND SINKS: 1990 TO 2002 UPDATE PREPARED IN SUPPORT OF THE 2005 INTEGRATED ENERGY POLICY REPORT Gerry Bemis and Jennifer Allen Transportation Technology Office Fuels and Transportation Division California Energy Commission STAFF PAPER.)

In response to the campaign, Victoria’s Secret has begun using high-recycled content paper for their clearance catalogs, which account for 10%, or 100,000, of the million catalogs the mail daily. The remaining 900,000 continue to be printed on paper made predominately from forests, rather than recycled content.

“The fact that the Boreal Forest is being cut down to make these catalogs is scandalous,” said Lafcadio Cortesi of ForestEthics. “Victoria’s Secret is destroying one of our planet’s most vital resources – North America’s Great Boreal Forest - to create junk mail. From forest to landfill or, at best, recycle bin, it’s literally one-stop shopping, and it’s simply unacceptable.”

The environmental campaign against Victoria’s Secret and parent company, Limited Brands, began in the fall of 2004 and includes advertising campaigns in major cities across the country, hundreds of demonstrations, and a website - www.VictoriasDirtySecret.net -- where people can get involved and challenge the retailer to use recycled paper, to stop using paper from Endangered Forests and to reduce its overall paper usage.

Environmental campaigns that focus on corporations have proven to be highly effective, leading to victories like Home Depot’s decision to stop selling Endangered Forest products, which caused a chain reaction of similar commitments across the do-it-yourself wood products retailers, and a similar transformation of the environmental practices of the office supply industry, starting with giant Staples, Inc., and including Office Depot.

For more information, photos of demonstrations and the forests being destroyed by Victoria’s Secret, visit www.VictoriasDirtySecret.net.

ForestEthics protects Endangered Forests by transforming the paper and wood industries in North America and by supporting forest communities in the development of conservation-based economies. Visit www.ForestEthics.org for more information.