Norm Thompson: Commerce With a Conscience
Smith outlined some business practices that had the greatest impact and deserved action, such as the catalogs’ printing processes (which include paper-making, forestry management, printing processes and mailing), and the products sold in the catalogs.
Before long, ideas on improved sustainability started bubbling up from the company, says Jewett. Indeed, once employees were trained to filter all business practices through the “environmental lens,” they devised ideas on how to save on paper, packaging, postage, waste collection and other costs. And many of those ideas went into the action plan.
The Paper Project
Besides constructing the energy-efficient building, the company’s move to recycled paper is its most ambitious sustainability project so far. Today, all of Norm Thompson’s 80 million catalogs mailed per year are printed on a minimum of 10-percent post-consumer recycled paper. And the cost to do so is the same as printing on traditional catalog paper—a prerequisite for the program, says Jewett.
The company partnered with the non-profit Alliance for Environmental Innovation to pilot a one-year project on finding, selecting and testing recycled paper. The Alliance works cooperatively with companies to create environmental solutions that make business sense. A full history of the pilot program is outlined in the report, “A New Norm in Catalogs,” available to catalogers (see “For More Info”). The short version follows.
Between summer 2000 and spring 2001, the project team tested recycled-content paper in the Norm Thompson and Solutions catalogs. The tests included both the offset and rotogravure printing processes. In each mailing, team members tracked the number of orders, size of orders and revenue per catalog from the test group (which received catalogs printed on recycled-content paper) and two control groups (each of which received catalogs printed on virgin paper). The catalogs were mailed simultaneously to randomly selected groups and were identical except for the paper.
- Companies:
- Norm Thompson Outfitters, Inc.