Washington Business Spring 2017 | Washington Business | Page 24

what’s working: sustainability
Balanced, Sustainable Forest Stewardship
Based in the heart of the Pacific Northwest’s wood basket, family-owned Green Diamond Resource
Company’s working forests have balanced environmental and economic values for 127 years.
employer: Green Diamond Resource Company
location: Shelton
number of employees: 304 (84 in Washington state)
product: In 1890, Solomon (Sol) Simpson founded Green
Diamond’s predecessor, Simpson Logging Company, on
Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Today, over 127 years later,
Sol’s direct descendants oversee Green Diamond Resource
Company’s forests with the same commitment to responsible,
innovative, long-term forest stewardship that was established
by their pioneering ancestor.
Green Diamond’s Northwest Division is responsible for
managing roughly 315,000 acres of Douglas fir and western
hemlock forests in Western Washington, most of it in
Mason and Grays Harbor counties. The company works with
customers that manufacture everything from power poles and
crossarms that keep the lights on and lumber and plywood
building materials to pulp for paper and boxes that pack the
many goods produced in Washington and across the nation.
innovative environmental stewardship:
Following rigorous forest practices rules for California,
Oregon, and Washington, Green Diamond has a staff of
trained foresters, wildlife biologists and other
experts that ensure their working forests
remain healthy for trees, wildlife and critical
salmon habitat.
To accomplish this, the company signed a
50-year Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) in
2000 which covers their lands in Washington.
Th e H C P gove r n s fo re s t m a n a ge m e n t
operations on these lands while protecting
51 fish and wildlife species and has a robust
greendiamond.com
24 association of washington business
adaptive management element to ensure flexibility with
changing conditions. Their staff embraces the HCP and its
oversight and works diligently to ensure compliance.
Basic to the forest industry is replanting after harvest, which
has been law in Washington state since 1945. Green Diamond
also has an active tree planting program and works with
nurseries that supply the company with healthy seedlings to
quickly replant harvested areas with native species.
in their own words: “Our employees are the original
environmentalists. These are people who want to work
in and on the land they are stewarding. We are what keeps
Washington green. We provide recreation, oxygen, clean
water, fish and wildlife habitat. At the same time, we provide
products that build homes and provide the books that you read
and, in the process, we sequester carbon, both in the trees and
the products. We’re still in business after 127 years and expect
to be in business for another 127 and beyond.” — Patti Case,
public affairs manager, Green Diamond Resource Company