Will readers turn against magazines because of environmental impact of paper-making?

Avrim Lazar, the president of the Forest Products Association of Canada, delivered a sobering message to the American Magazine Conference last week in San Francisco -- he predicted that environmentally minded Americans would focus in future on the connection between magazine paper and global climate change.

"What you're selling when you sell a magazine is identity for the consumer; you have a brand and they want to share in the spin and glow of being bio-degradeable, sophisticated, athletic and there is a danger that the actual paper contributing to the feel of the identity will undermine it. So while you may think of pulp and paper as as lumpen a commodity as you can get, in fact if you don't do the right thing by the environment, it's the commodity that will be the message. People will feel that they are dinosaurs, that they are not with it because they are buying your magazine."

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