NEW YORK, NY — Scholastic, the global children's publishing, education and media company, today announced that significant progress has been made toward the company-wide goal of strengthening its sustainable paper procurement practices and increasing the percentage of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified and post-consumer waste (PCW) recycled paper purchased. In January of 2008, Scholastic announced goals for 2012 to increase its purchase of FSC-certified paper for its publications to 30 per cent and its use of recycled paper to 25 per cent, of which 75 per cent would be post-consumer waste.

In 2008, Scholastic purchased 89,378 tons of paper of which 17,608 tons, or 19.7 per cent, was FSC-certified, up from four per cent in 2007. In addition, 13,496 tons, or 15.1 per cent, of the paper purchased was produced from recovered fiber, up from 13 per cent in 2007, and of that amount, 11,258 tons, or 83 per cent, was produced from PCW fiber, up from 77 per cent in 2007.

"Last year Scholastic made an industry-leading commitment to forest stewardship with its goals for sourcing FSC-certified and recycled paper," said Corey Brinkema, President of FSC-US. "The results for 2008 demonstrate extraordinary progress toward those goals, including a five-fold increase in the procurement of FSC-certified fiber. This heightened demand is directly encouraging new certification of forests managed to FSC's high standards for environmentally responsible, socially equitable and economically viable forestry."

"In just one year, the Scholastic manufacturing team made impressive progress toward achieving our paper procurement goals, while still carefully managing our costs," said Maureen O'Connell, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer of Scholastic. "The Company remains keenly focused on achieving our 2012 goals and continuing to be an industry leader for environmentally responsible practices."

For more information visit www.scholastic.com.

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