International Paper Company (IP) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon. My name is Kyle White. I'm the paper packaging as well as environmental services analyst here at Deutsche Bank. I'm very pleased to have with us, Sophie Beckham, the Chief Sustainability Officer at International Paper. The way this presentation will work is Sophie will give a presentation for about 15, 20 or 30 minutes or so. And then after that, we'll go into more of a Q&A session, a little bit back and forth. So really pleased that Sophie was able to join us here, and I'll just give it over to you.

Super. Thanks, Kyle. I'm happy to be with you, and thanks very much for joining this afternoon. I really look forward to talking about International Paper. I'd like to share with you a little bit about our sustainability journey and talk a bit about who we are and what we do. I think, first and foremost, it's important to know that International Paper is a leading producer of renewable, fiber-based packaging, pulp and paper. And our primary role is to transform these renewable products into products that people use every day in the space of corrugated packaging, which is about 70% of our business; Global Cellulose Fibers, which is the pulp that goes into hygiene products around the world, it's about 15% of our business; and then the remaining 15% is our Copy Paper business that is planned to be spun off later this year. So what I'd like to do is share with you how the business that I just gave you the overview of, really, is delivering sustainable outcomes. And I think in order to frame this discussion, it's important to convey that this is not just about discussing a sustainability strategy, but it's about how our business strategy delivers sustainable outcomes. So with that, I'll dive right in. I think behind our 120-plus years of the company has been a sustainability journey. And our vision, which you see here on the screen, to be among the most successful, sustainable and responsible companies in the world, really is the articulation of that multi sort of generational experience working in the space of forest products. What you see on the left of this slide, the graphic is called the IP way forward. This is really our strategic framework. So how do we deliver those sustainable outcomes that I mentioned through our products and create value for all of our stakeholders for generations to come. And right in the center of this graphic, you can see is sustaining forests. And I'll come back to this, I'd like to speak more to it during the presentation. But it's at the heart of everything we do. Over this 120 years, our company has had a lot of opportunities to innovate and change, to transform and to become more global in nature. And we are a global enterprise today. But it's not the first generation of our actual sustainability goals. We have been working for the last 10 years or so on a suite of sustainability goals that are reflected here called Vision 2020. And these really helped us articulate how we're going to improve our impact on people, on the planet and to address the challenges of the time. I think like many companies, our first-generation of sustainability goals were very heavily leaning on the environmental component of sustainability. And that is reflected on this slide in the blue and also the green circles that you see. Our social goals and the targets, the way that we wanted to impact our communities was also articulated, but I think not expanded in a more holistic way as we have today, which I'll share with you next. But as you can see here, we did have 12 goals, and we are on track to meet or exceed them. We've wrapped those goals up last year, and we'll be reporting on them as we move forward. About 1.5 years ago, we began a process to really think about who do we want to be as a company to advance our vision of being the most successful, sustainable and responsible and to think about what we need to look like to really pursue that in the next decade. This was a critical point in a process for us because it really begs to the question, how can we remain the supplier of choice for customers, the employer of choice for attracting and retaining talent, the investment of choice for our investors? And then ultimately, how do we really build a better future for all of our stakeholders? This question was the pivot for us to move to thinking about where our next-generation of goals would be, what we needed to focus on and how we thought about moving forward beyond our first-generation sustainability goals. Fundamental to our process was also recognizing, as I alluded to previously, that sustainability is really about more than the environment. There is a natural and meaningful interdependence between people, the planet, our company's profit and, of course, our products. And this is really how we get to doing business in a responsible way and delivering those sustainable outcomes that provide a sustainable future for everybody involved. We leaned in this process of developing our next-generation goals heavily on the notion of a sustainable corporation, which I think is captured here. And that we could, through envisioning where we wanted to take our company, really make sure that we were creating a business strategy that would help us deliver outcomes that were sustainable. So 1.5 years later, we announced just about a year ago, our Vision 2030 goals. And what you can see on the screen here is the full package of our goals. This is a commitment to building a better future for people and for the planet. We have 4 goals here in the colorful boxes, 8 targets associated with those goals. They are a reflection of what is meaningful for our stakeholders, for our company and where we can positively drive coordinated sustainability outcomes on the ground. And what I'm going to do in the next series of slides is kind of walk you through each of these goals, help you understand how that connects to moving from sustainability being something we do to how we operate every day. And then kind of wrap up and give plenty of time for questions. So as I mentioned before, I'm going to start with healthy and abundant forest. Our entire business depends on the sustainability of forest. And that's why sustaining forest is at the heart of our strategic framework and it is also really a flagship goal within our Vision 2030. Our intention is to continue to lead forest stewardship efforts globally. And we have 2 targets that are going to allow us to measure our progress towards that goal. One of them, the first one is really about our sourcing of raw material. This is a target about 100% of our fiber coming from verified, sustainably-managed forests while safeguarding some of the other critical environmental attributes of those forests. And this is a target that really connects to our supply chain and what's within our 4 walls. In contrast, our second target about conservation and restoration of acres, 1 million acres or about 400,000 hectares of ecologically-significant forest land. This target speaks more to what we can do both within our supply chains, but also outside of our 4 walls, together with partners. I think that this is a way of framing a holistic and, I would say, comprehensive suite of objectives around forest stewardship. And what I'm really excited about in this space is that we have already -- although we've just begun our implementation in January of this year, we've already made significant progress in looking at new tools and new partnerships, such as with the World Wildlife Fund as well as the nature conservancy to really address some of those critical issues facing forests, whether that be around carbon storage and climate mitigation or looking more specifically at bird-friendly forestry techniques and how we can enhance biodiversity. So we have a lot of exciting work going on in this space. And I think, as I said before, this is really the foundation of our company's business model. And so it's a place that we believe we need to continue to lead efforts on a global level. If we move from sourcing to really sustainable operations, which is connected to our manufacturing footprint, here, we are focusing on improving our climate impact and advancing water stewardship. International Paper, for more than a century, has really been a leader in the use of renewable energy. We generate about 75% of the energy we use from carbon neutral biomass residuals, which allows us to look to other alternatives than fossil fuels for some of our energy generation. In the development of our goals, we have recognized that managing climate-related risks is critical throughout our value chain to really advance a low-carbon economy and to contribute to the decarbonization that I think we're all hearing so much about, in terms of how the planet really moves forward and the contribution of business to that. The climate space is also an area, and I'm sure those of you who are listening will appreciate this no matter what your role is, that is accelerating very quickly in the world around us. And so I think we have recognized that our target, as expressed here, really needs to be aligned with the best available climate science. Our target at this point is around our scopes 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions. That is, you can say all the ways in which our company produces or contributes to the production of greenhouse gas emissions. And our intention is to reduce those by 35% by 2030. The second target that we have in this space is connected to our water use. Like many forest products companies, International Paper is a large user of water. We return more than 90% of the water we use to the aquatic environment once it's treated. But we recognize that we have an opportunity to ensure the most efficient use of water resources. And so our target is really to reduce our water use and also to look at the context that our facilities are operating in, in terms of what are the other needs for water in those communities, what might be competing uses of water, what are the physical and natural conditions that might lead to water risk or drought or other kinds of stresses on the water sources in those areas. And unlike greenhouse gases, which get emitted, they fly around the air, if you reduce them in one place, there is a positive impact in other places, water is highly local. And so we are taking an approach to both recognize and create stewardship plans that really consider the context of the water use and the locations of our facilities and the people who are based there. So I talked a lot about some of the environmental aspects. And now I want to move into thriving people and communities. As I said before, our Vision 2020 goals were heavily to environment. And coming back to that really critical interdependence of both the social and the environmental, we have, I think, amplified, and for the first time, set some really clear diversity and inclusion targets. Our goal here is to promote our employee well-being by providing safe, caring and inclusive workplaces. And also to strengthen the resilience of the communities where we work and live. We've got 3 targets for this goal. One is connected to safety; the second is connected to diversity and inclusion and to some specific targets and metrics that we'll be using to measure our progress; and the third is really about how we can impact the lives of people who live and work in the communities where we are operating. For all 3 of these areas, we have developed -- and this is true for all of our goals, we have developed specific metrics that are internally connected to and integrated with our business strategic, operating and facility level plans. And so we're able to look really closely at how are we advancing progress in this space. One other thing I would add to this is that the work that we have to do here is not insignificant. We have always a safety imperative in our company. It's a -- both a value as well as an objective that we will not compromise on. We also, for the first time, as I mentioned, have communicated externally the diversity and inclusion targets. And we're looking at all of the ways in which diversity, equity and inclusion appear in our workplace, in our workforce and also in the marketplace. And so looking at the intersections of those issues in those different context. And then finally, on community engagement. International Paper has 4 signature causes. We are focused on health and wellness, on disaster relief, on education and on hunger. And so those are the areas that we're really looking to partner in our communities to ensure that we're meeting the needs there and strengthening the resilience of those communities to address those concerns going forward. I'm going to go to the fourth goal area. And this is, again, one that I'm particularly excited about because it's a new way for International Paper to articulate our contribution, the contribution of our products to sustainable solutions. The goal for our renewable solutions area is really about accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy through our innovative fiber-based products. And we have one overarching target here that I'll unpack a little bit. We are aiming to advance circular solutions throughout our value chain and to ensure that all of our products are 100% reusable, recycled, more compostable. That's an expression of a metric that we can measure against, but what I would say is that the space that we're working in for renewable solutions is the entire value chain. Circularity is a concept that has really, I think, taken hold. Anybody who is working in the industry side or on the consumer goods side is recognizing the importance of circularity, both from sourcing, through manufacturing and then really to the end of use of products and thinking about how we recover those products and how they're reincorporated in our value chain. So I think there's tremendous opportunity within this particular area for innovation of products to think about from the design phase through the manufacturing, to think about how we minimize waste, how we capture waste that we're creating and reuse it or find other end-of-life solutions for it. And then ultimately, for the customer end, to really think about how are we ensuring that we're partnering with municipalities or with organizations or with our customers to ensure the recovery of those corrugated boxes, to ensure that the end consumer notices that there are ways to recycle those boxes and that they can be reincorporated into our value chain. So this renewable solutions space is really exciting for us. I think it's a place where there's tremendous opportunity. And there's also tremendous I would say, upside in terms of collaboration, both with the private sector and also with other organizations. I'm going to spend just kind of one more moment on this concept, because I think this is one that really wraps its arms around all of our other goal areas. The circular model, as I just mentioned, is sort of the opposite of that take make waste. And I think it is regenerative by design. The -- it's beyond basic recycling. As I alluded to, it's really about using this renewable resource, this well -- fiber from well-managed forest. It's about looking at how resources throughout manufacturing, consumption and use and then the end-of-life of that product, how all of that kind of comes together in this sort of virtuous cycle that you see here. And I think that the forest products industry was really one of the original circular manufacturing systems. We were -- we say we weren't sort of circular before circular was cool. And I think that now there are a lot of buzzwords. But ultimately, this is a sourcing, manufacturing and recovering cycle, that the forest products industry in International Paper has really been leaning on in order to allow our business to provide those sort of sustainable solutions for our customers and for the end consumers. So our challenge going forward in this space is to continue to find synergies and to build circular processes really into the work that we do every day. So just to kind of conclude. I wanted to make sure that I mentioned how we are laddering up and connecting the sustainability work that we're doing internally with what is sort of the world's sustainability agenda. And that, I would say, is best expressed through the UN Sustainable Development Goals. When we developed our Vision 2030, we really looked to align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and identified those of the 17 goals that we felt we could most materially deliver impact on. We have identified 12 of the SDGs that are pictured here. We've looked very carefully at the road maps that our company has developed to advance progress and our goals and targets and how they connect to some of the outcomes that have been defined by the UN for the SDGs. And we're also working in collaboration with a lot of other organizations, such as the World Business Council for sustainable development, the Business Roundtable and other industry associations to really advance delivery here. I think this is an important point because we recognize that our Vision 2030 work, again, it's not just a sustainability strategy. It's part of our business strategy, and that is also critical to kind of connect with and help to advance some of the global goals as we see here. So with that, I will go ahead and pause, Kyle. And I'm happy to take questions or to answer anything that I've covered in the presentation in more detail.

Yes, sounds good. Well, thank you so much for that presentation, that overview. Really good to see all that progress that International Paper is making and is driving to make in the future years. I wanted to -- you talked a little bit about it at the end there, but I wanted to go to the process in terms of the Vision 2030. It seems like you mentioned how you really took a step back, wanted to see what IP should look like going forward. So I just wanted to dig a little more into that process. How did you guys determine what were the right goals and metrics to follow? And then also, along that, how did you determine the scientific process behind it in terms of we can hit XYZ percentage and how to follow and track those metrics?

Great. Yes. Thank you for that question. The work to develop Vision 2030, I would say, was both an inside-out approach as well as an outside-in. We started off by really doing a one-on-one with every member of our senior leadership team, starting with our Chairman. And having a bit of a discussion about who IP wanted to be in the next decade and what our company should look like in order to meet our stakeholders' expectations and how to sort of skate to where the puck might be, if I could use that phrase. We took all of that information. We then did a tremendous amount of external benchmarking, materiality assessment to determine what were our key stakeholders saying that we should focus on as well as what were our peers and customers looking to. And what kind of goals have they developed that would potentially influence what they expected of us, and how we could meet their needs. I think over the course of 18 months, we had several opportunities to sort of lock ourselves in a room as a sustainability team to synthesize the information that we are hearing and to really put forward different models and frameworks. But we knew we needed to have a simpler approach. We needed to be more holistic on social and environmental areas. And we really needed to be able to present an ambitious package that would continue to help us advance our vision and really kind of hit that leadership level that we were looking to. So it was a very iterative process. And I think, ultimately, our final -- the final point we came to was very deep dive assessment of the data, particularly associated with water and greenhouse gases, definitely worked with some experts in the space at both of those areas, externally, to help us put our arms around what metrics we could use and what might be the levers for us as we advance on these targets. And finally, our senior leader team signed off and endorsed the goals, made them their own and has given the company really the mandate to drive forward its delivery. So one thing I would say is that going into a process like that, I think we all tend to assume it's sort of linear, that we go from A to Z. But this was certainly not. It was a winding road and a really important learning journey, I think, from not just the sustainability subject matter experts but really for the whole company as we advance and timely deliver the Vision 2030 package.

And so it's one thing to come up with the goals and the targets from senior leadership. I'm curious how do you then take those goals and targets and make sure they're implemented down through the company on the operations side. Do you have any kind of incentives for the plant managers? Or just how do you ensure that you're meeting the goals on a more local bottom level?

Yes. Good question. I think you've got to have both a top-down and a bottom-up approach. So as you noted, very strong endorsement from senior leadership, very clear expectation in our Chairman's annual priority letter on how Vision 2030 helps deliver on many of our strategic business areas as well as an overall focus on stewardship. What we have done in the last year, and I would say that COVID has not slowed us down from pursuing this, is a really deep implementation design where we've spent a lot of time in cross-functional working teams in the company. We've been able to pull people from manufacturing, from our business, from our global sourcing, from our other teams, our Investor Relations team, our government relations team, really, really a broad group of people into working groups that have helped us to define road maps. And the road map is really what are the tactics and the action plans in the short term that will allow people working at our facilities, but also in our businesses and functional areas to help contribute to the goals. Our work is not done there. This is a long term process. Engaging employees is critical. Making sure that we're really reaching out to people, understanding their context and also helping them understand where they can have impact and the actions they can take to help contribute. It's not something we're going to get right the first time. But it is something that we've kicked off, we've started the process. And I would -- I call this kind of our integration framework. And I think we're well on the way to making that part of how we work every day. But of course, it's not a one-and-done. It's a long-term education, learning for us. And then course correcting as we move forward.

You talked a little bit about some of your stakeholders and maybe customers getting a little more vocal when it comes to sustainability and initiatives. I'm curious, what are some of the main things that they are really pushing back on or striving to make progress on for you?

Yes. I think there's been just a tremendous uptick across our stakeholder groups in terms of their interest and in many cases, their expectations on International Paper's performance in this space, whether it's through our annual reporting or it's through direct questions or surveys. I also -- I think it's our employees, and we have 48,000 of them or so around the world, are showing an increased energy and passion for some of this work, which is helpful because I think we have a lot to do. Our stakeholders externally, I think, are -- there are kind of 3 issues that, for me, have really risen to the top. A year ago, I would not have thought that a global pandemic would necessarily accelerate momentum around climate change. But I think what we have seen is indeed that the COVID pandemic has certainly not slowed. And if anything, I think it has sort of picked up the pace of interest on climate change and mitigating climate change and what a company like IP is doing to address those sorts of concerns. So climate is a huge one. I also think we've seen a lot of customer and other stakeholder interests, not surprisingly, really in the diversity, equity and inclusion space. And so I think it was very timely that we could release our goals, our Vision 2030 goals, just about a year ago. It gave us the opportunity when these questions started coming in as a result, in some cases, of some of the racial justice issues that we saw develop here, particularly in the U.S. It gave us an opportunity to respond to those inquiries and to talk about the work that we are going to do and that we've started to do in the diversity and inclusion space. So I think that's a huge area for customers. And then I think, ultimately, the name of the game right now is really the circular economy. And as I said, and that's why I spent a little more time on it in this presentation, I think circularity is really wrapping around everything we do. It's a unifier for all of our goals because it covers the whole value chain and there are opportunities throughout the value chain to really think about how we can innovate, how we can reduce waste, et cetera. So those sorts of -- broadly speaking, those 3 areas, I think, are only going to receive kind of more attention and focus as we move forward.

And maybe now just shifting to more of the actual consumer side. I'm curious if you -- what you guys have done in terms of some of the research that you have done or maybe your customers are telling you in terms of what consumers are actually finding most important when it comes to sustainability in packaging. Are they looking for higher recycling rates or packaging that they need to be using more recycled content? Or are they actually focused on the greenhouse gas emissions and making sure that those are being reduced? Just kind of curious, any type of research that you guys have seen in regards to consumer when it comes packaging?

Sure. We are engaged in a collaboration called the Recycling Partnership, and that is a lot of different companies as well as NGOs who are coming together to both identify some of the challenges, the issues, and you mentioned a few of them. And also look for solutions together. This is a group that there's a lot of sort of research and, I would say, benchmarking on -- with different kind of consumer audiences. I think that you've referenced the biggest issues when we hear about things that are on the end consumers' mind. We do hear about recyclability. We hear about recycled content. We have heard concerns about where does the fiber come from to make these boxes. And we also have, I would say, a significant shift, particularly in the last year, from purchases of big-box stores to e-commerce. And that shift has absolutely been a boost for some of the corrugated packaging industry. It's also one that has presented new challenges when it comes to recovery of corrugated and recycling that material back into the fiber stream. So -- and you also mentioned kind of the carbon footprint of the product. I think we have a great story to tell on all of those fronts that we are both directly in control of and also those where we can see opportunities to collaborate with others for solutions. The recovery piece from the end consumer is a constant challenge. We don't have International Paper trucks that are kind of driving around and grabbing the corrugated from people's homes and the blue bin in front of their homes. And so there are a lot of different actors that we need to be able to work together with in order to make sure that those materials are being recovered. Maybe the last thing I'll say about that is that we have really, over the last more than 120 years, been a driver to both maintain and enhance forests through the relationships we have with those forestland owners through our ability to provide assistance to forestland owners for sustainable forest management practices. And I think that is a very hard story to tell, the story of legacy of forest stewardship. It's a very hard story to tell to the end consumer, who might be more excited about that Amazon package being delivered because of what's in the box than actually the box itself. So I think that's a space where we want to continue to work with others to be able to communicate to the consumer, you can feel good about getting this box because this is -- there's a sustainability story here and it starts at the forest and it starts at the sourcing. And it goes all the way through the value chain.

Yes. I want to follow-up on that because I think that's one of the interesting things with IP. People forget that before what really kind of kicked off a lot of sustainability discussion was around the forest and making sure we're preserving forest and land. And so one thing I thought I was interested that the IP does is your kind of certified forest management group program that you have, which allows some of the private timberland owners to certify their fiber. And maybe you can just talk a little bit more about that program and your core stewardship initiatives in general?

Sure. I think maybe in the early 2000s, we really started to see an increase in requests and interest from customers around certified forest products. And for those unfamiliar with the world of forest and product certification, certification is really a third-party assurance that in the case of forest, that a forest is being managed to sustainable forestry criteria, principles and criteria. And so there's a third-party verification process associated with that. And as you might imagine, from the way I just described it, that absolutely is a process that requires a forestland owner to go through some extra steps, either because they're changing their practices or because they're becoming more coordinated and have an administrative burden to take on to meet requirements that they previously were not reporting to. So as our customers became more interested in certified forest products, and we recognize as a company that we were going to need more certified fiber, we developed what we call Certified Forest Management, which is our own group certificate. It means that International Paper, through our foresters and fiber buyers in our organization, is able to provide technical assistance to landowners to meet those criteria. And they are then sort of adopted into our Forest Management Group. We have probably close to 1.5 million acres of forestland in the U.S., in our FSC Forest Stewardship Council Certified Group. We help those landowners to meet the criteria, and we're also able to advance for certification on landscapes that are important to us, to be able to provide our customers with what they need with respect to certified products. So I think it's -- the model that we've developed has been really a win-win, both for International Paper and for the forestland owners because we have the trust, we have the relationship with the forestland owner. They know us, and they know that if we are going to give them an opportunity to be a part of this group, that we are going to be able to also provide technical assistance to meet the criteria and to continue that economic and business relationship. So it's been a real success for us. I think our forestland owners have said as much as well. And it is one tool, I would say, in our toolbox, that's really a proof point for our sustainable sourcing approach.

You referenced a climate change a lot in terms of how maybe it accelerated some of your environmental targets. I'm curious if climate change at all comes into your operational strategy in terms of where you guys are thinking about your asset locations. And does climate change factor into that at all? We've seen the severe weather in Texas. And it seems like there's always a major hurricane in the Gulf Region. And so I'm curious if that kind of plays a role at all in terms of long-term strategy on asset or mill locations?

Sure. I would characterize it like this. We are very engaged in assessing the physical risk of our facilities and the influence of the extreme weather events that you just mentioned on those facilities and on the supply chains that they're connected to, both from a sourcing as well as a downstream kind of customer side. I think that we are certainly not alone in learning more about this space of how our risk approach could take into account the longer time lines associated with climate change scenario modeling. We're working to better understand how climate is an amplifier to other risks that we might already be incorporating into a risk management model. And I think we are trying to also connect the dots in a way that means where we have a decision useful model for our existing facilities. Certainly, at this point in time, we are -- we haven't built any -- in the recent past, we certainly haven't built any new facilities. And I think that that's a reflection of the fact that we have an enterprise footprint that very much does meet our needs, and those are our key customers at this time. So I can only say that I think like many other companies, we're in the beginning of really looking at how scenario modeling can help us make good decisions about facilities. And that we are also taking very seriously the weather events that we've experienced, the impact on the communities where we work, the people who work for International Paper and on the facilities themselves. So it's a topic that I think we're going to see become, let's say, more mature as well as more present as we move forward. And it's certainly one that I'm learning about every day. I think it's an important place for us to really continue to advance our -- not just our knowledge, but also taking action.

Maybe 1 or 2 more questions here, given the time constraint. Kind of shifting gears here, appreciate all the efforts and targets that you guys are making on diversity and inclusion. I think it's fair to say that the packaging paper and packaging industry is probably pretty male dominated, especially when you get into the mill level and the operational side of things. So I'm curious, it's one thing to have the target and put it out there. But what is IP doing internally to kind of promote more women in the workforce, especially at the mill level or just a more diverse workforce going forward to make sure that you kind of retain that diverse workforce?

Yes. I -- we could probably send several hours discussing this. Critically, critically important for our company. And I think our -- as I mentioned, our sort of strategy on diversity and inclusion is really about the workforce, it's about the workplace, and it's about the marketplace. And diversity inclusion is sort of at the intersection of all of those imperatives. We are a global company, and we do have women in our -- are salaried and our production workforce all around the world. We believe that -- and you mentioned that it is critical to attract talent, to attract women as well as women of color and diversity across the board. We know that it's one thing to attract, but it's critically important to retain them. And I think that is really about making sure that our working environment is as appealing as possible and creates the conditions that will allow for success for women and for men. And it's one -- we are asking ourselves the questions right now, what does that need to look like? How do we ensure that we can, in our production environment, really attract women, understand the needs of both women and men in the workplace in that context and really adapt to whatever the conditions are in terms of where we're speaking about. It might be a completely different -- this is very context specific. It might be completely different set of conditions that we need to be able to have in place in order to attract and retain women in both Bogalusa, Louisiana and in Saillat, France. And so we have a process in our HR organization where we are developing these regional diversity plans that are really specific to the operating conditions in those areas. I do not think we have the answer to this yet. As a woman who has been working in the forest products industry for over 20 years, I'm a forester by education. So I really came up into this industry with forest being my starting point. It is very male dominated. It is a space that is changing over time. And that we, IP, have a role to play to really accelerate that, to identify the ways in which we can recruit and retain women in our industry. And really, to make sure that women who are coming into our company are seeing women in leadership positions. Because I think that's one way in which we encourage women coming in at the earlier part of their career to really say, okay, there's a place for me here. There are women and mentors for me here in the organization at all leadership levels up to the Board. And that's the -- that's one of the drivers to kind of retain folks. So I'm giving you a high-level overview of some of the things that we're thinking about. We have a lot of tactics behind that and a lot of tools that we're trying to leverage to really shift the numbers here, but I think it's going to take us time.

One aspect you mentioned, it's pretty interesting, that I'm sure a lot of people kind of forget and especially U.S.-centric focused investors. Well, I think that's all the time we have. I really appreciate your participation in our events here this year. It's a great overview. I'm kind of looking forward to tracking your progress as we go forward. Thanks again, Sophie.

Thank you, Kyle. My pleasure to join. Take care.