Report on Paper

One remarkable spinoff of the environmental crusade is a tiny New York firm with the imposing name Council on Economic Priorities. Its sole product is research--not into companies' economic records but into their performance as members of society. Last week the Council issued its most ambitious report to date, a 400-page survey of how the nation's 24 biggest pulp and paper producers have responded to the growing demand for a cleaner environment.

Entitled "Paper Profits," the C.E.P. report is as dry and statistic laden as a stock prospectus. It notes that the paper industry has been generally slow to install antipollution devices and processes, despite their ready availability. Owens-Illinois and Weyerhaeuser are important exceptions; both companies clean up most of their plants' effluents. Less than half of the 131 mills surveyed have satisfactory air-pollution controls; many dump raw wastes into U.S. waterways. According to the report, St. Regis, Potlatch and Diamond International have particularly poor records.

Reaction from the industry was mild. The American Paper Institute called the C.E.P. survey "one-sided" because it did not consider the "needs of individual communities" in the recession, and did not mention the paper companies' support of other environmental programs. But the industry association also admitted that the report's net effect would be to help speed installation of pollution-control equipment.

Just the Facts. "We are not going after these companies as crusaders," says Alice Tepper, 26, a pretty Wellesley graduate who is founder and director of the Council. "If they are polluters, the facts themselves will hit them in the pocketbook. Many Americans seem to prefer cleaner air to an extra dollar of dividend income." Alice Tepper does not pretend to be a pollution expert; she does know how to organize experts who can examine corporate performance. She first got interested in such problems two years ago while working as a securities analyst in a Boston investment firm. A local synagogue requested a portfolio of stocks in companies with minimal defense contracts. After other investors--mainly religious groups--expressed interest in getting similar information, Alice recalls, "I started thinking of how to expand to cover other social problems."

Early last year, she moved to New York to "turn on the major Wall Street houses." Now, C.E.P. has about 800 subscribers for its regular research publications--including banks, investment houses, foundations, universities and more than 40 corporations. Harper & Row has already published one of its special reports as a paperback. Borrowing the methods of securities analysts, the Council's staff of 20 interviews company officials, spot-checks the results for accuracy (both in the field and with outside specialists) and then compiles its surveys. So far, C.E.P. has issued six reports, covering corporate performance in military contracting, minority hiring and, most frequently, pollution control.

Militant as the subjects might sound, the Council leaves advocacy to Nader's Raiders and other such groups. Its philosophy is just to present unadorned, hitherto unavailable facts. Says Alice Tepper: "We would simply like to see social responsibility become, like profits and earning figures, a standard by which corporate practices are evaluated and exposed to the investing public."

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