Across the globe, there is a bioeconomy beginning to mature. For example, approximately 15 million hectares of agricultural land are covered every year with horticultural plastics. Every year, in labor intensive and expensive efforts, all of these plastic covers must be removed after the growing season is over. The land must be cleaned, plowed and […]
Element Media, publishers of a variety of magazines focused on the Honolulu market, this week announced a partnership with Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods to plant native koa trees on the Big Island of Hawaii in order to offset the carbon emissions and paper use from their periodical Pacific Edge. The move bucks a trend, as many […]
Thanks to our friends at Dilbert for this one. In our sometimes overzealous approach to greening our companies…a good reminder to set achievable green goals in your workplace (that don’t conflict with other goals, if possible).
This will probably get me drummed out of Greenpeace, but I’m increasingly of the opinion that the greenest thing to do with paper is to use lots of it, preferably printing on it first, and NOT recycle it. Instead bury it somewhere anaerobic, so it won’t decay for a long time. Then grow more trees […]
Two Sides, an environmental advocacy group known for holding greenwashing marketers’ feet to the fire in the United Kingdom, has launched in the United States. One of Two Sides’ successes in the U. K. has been its campaign to challenge what it calls “misleading messaging” related to the supposed environmental benefits of electronic billing (as […]
About 7 months ago, following grad school I relocated to the great (not state although some are trying) District of Columbia. Although 7 months is not a very long time, one would think it would be long enough for me to stop receiving previous tenant’s junk mail. In fact, it’s not just one previous tenant, […]
Both marketers and consumers are asking to know more about the paper they use today — who made it, how it’s made, and where and how its raw materials are sourced. They want this information prominently displayed on their products. Knowing this, one paper company is doing the smart thing — offering a variety of […]
Greenwashing sanctions for promoting e-billing? New research is making the case that major U.K. corporates are flouting advertising regulations and risk reporting to the Advertising Standards Authority for promoting electronic billing as good for the environment. Two Sides, a European initiative to promote the responsible production and use of print and paper, is targeting companies […]
Did you know that in the paper community, it’s an open secret that recycled paper has a higher carbon footprint than virgin paper? It’s more evidence that things in the environmental world are not always as conventional wisdom would suggest. What factors impact the carbon footprint of recycled paper? transportation of the fiber (distance of […]
Recently, I was reading one of those business-to-business online discussions and someone asked for recommendations on tree-free paper. One of the first suggestions was Polyart, a synthetic paper made from recycled plastic. Sounds good, right? Paper not made from trees. What could be greener than that? I went to the company’s site and read through […]
After nine years working the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Duncan Pollard, director, conservation practice and policy, has words of praise for the pulp and paper industry. It’s proof that all industry is not bad and that environmental policies and practices can change, often substantially. He also wants to make sure the industry is aware of […]
This week, Greenpeace released a new report “How Sinar Mas Is Pulping the Planet.” The conclusions were highly critical of Asia Pulp & Paper, one of the largest vertically integrated pulp and paper companies in the world. According to Greenpeace, APP is gobbling up tropical forest for fiber production, lying about its intentions to scale […]
Many people think that if they use paper, they need to pay attention to carbon emissions, but if it’s e-media, not so much. Not true. Whether it’s print or electronic, all media has a carbon footprint. According to a report by Don Carli of the Institute for Sustainable Communications, as reported in Printing News: According […]
I’ve been thinking about postconsumer waste lately (apparently, I have too much time on my hands). What I was wondering was this: Postconsumer waste is only one of three waste streams for unused paper. There is also mill broke (scrap collected at the mill and recycled back into the same type of paper from whence […]