Kimberly-Clark, the big maker of Kleenex tissues and Scott paper towels, wants more of them to come from trees that are grown and harvested in a sustainable manner, as defined by the Forest Stewardship Council.

The Dallas-based paper product giant said this week that by 2011, 40 percent of its wood fiber would come from FSC-certified forestry operations, or recycled materials. That would be a 70-percent increase from 2007, or about 600,000 tons of fiber.

Chalk it up as another step in the growing corporate environmental responsibility movement. Under pressure from environmental groups, investor watchdogs and shareholders, companies are increasingly responding with pledges to act more sustainably.

The pressure can come from old-fashioned public relations campaigns from such well-known groups as Greenpeace, which said last week that it was ending a five-year campaign against Kimberly-Clark, after the company agreed to stop using any wood harvested from non-FSC certified operations in Canadian boreal forests by 2011.

Or it can come from socially responsible investment firms, like Domini Social Investments, which has chalked up changes in sustainable forestry practices at companies including Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowe's and Procter and Gamble to company shareholder resolutions it has organized.

Companies are taking their own steps to get more sustainable, whether on their own or through goals they've asked their suppliers to meet. The latter case applies to Wal-Mart, which last month set broad goals for its suppliers to track and reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions, waste and water use (see Green Light post).

And much of the early activity by companies to measure and manage their carbon footprints is based not on government regulations but on the desire to present a greener face to customers and investors (see Carbon Accounting: It's All About Appearances).

Not all shareholder resolutions lead to the changes they're meant to encourage. In June, Home Depot voted down a shareholder resolution asking it to set energy efficiency goals for its own operations, noting that it already has a host of sustainability programs.