Environmental Sustainability

In the IndustryEye section of this issue on pgs. 12-13, you’ll find our second quarterly Catalog Success Latest Trends Report, a benchmarking survey we conducted in late November in partnership with the multichannel ad agency Ovation Marketing. This one focuses on key catalog/multichannel issues, and we’ve included most of the charts there, so I encourage you to take a look. You’ll be able to find some charts only on our Web site due to magazine space limitations. We also didn’t have the space to include the numerous comments that you — our readers and survey respondents — wrote in response to two of the questions.

The Direct Marketing Association called a special conference on Dec. 17 at its New York City headquarters to engage its cataloger members in helping take preemptive strikes against a growing number of states seeking to enact do-not-mail legislation. The first half of the more than an hour-long meeting, co-hosted by the DMA’s President/CEO John Greco and Executive Vice President of Government Affairs and Corporate Responsibility Steven Berry, served primarily to remind catalogers of the merits of catalog shopping on society and what catalogers and the DMA do to be environmentally responsible with catalogs. Then Greco and Berry described ways the DMA intends to lead

Fair Indigo, whose primary reason for being is that it sources exclusively from fair trade factories, sells nice-looking, comfortable, casual clothing primarily for upper-middle-class women. But so do a lot of other catalogers. So how is the Middleton, Wis.-based cataloger able to find prospects who’ll buy their next pair of jeans from Fair Indigo rather than more established merchants, such as J. Jill or Coldwater Creek? The mission’s the thing, of course. “Part of the process of finding who our customers were was to determine where she’d likely shop,” says Fair Indigo Director of Marketing Terry Nelson. So the cataloger developed a list of prospecting

What you’ll gain from this article: - practical guidance on developing and implementing a paper procurement policy that integrates environmental and business goals; and - a six-step process for arriving at a policy that aligns with your corporate philosophy. A catalog company’s environmental policy reflects the values of an organization and has an impact on relations with its stakeholders. Its implementation within your company will demonstrate your commitment to corporate responsibility. And it can significantly affect your company’s environmental footprint as well as its financial strength. Effective environmental policies guide executives’ decision-making in ways that have real environmental and business consequences. Following

When it comes to the environmental footprint you leave behind in your catalog and direct mail operations, no doubt you want to do the right thing. But understanding the terms of the debate takes a bit of self-education. “The challenge is moving away from the arena in which we talk only about paper made of post-consumer-waste (PCW) recycled content, to a forum that’s focused on the new idea of the entire lifecycle of paper — from the time the tree is cut to the back door of the printing company,” says Scott Bond, senior vice president for Bulkley Dunton, a New York City-based

Environmental concern has re-emerged as an important issue for the direct marketing industry in the past few years. And the use of recycled paper is one of the issues that has been at the forefront of the resurgence. U.S. catalog companies mailed about 17 billion catalogs last year, using 3.6 million tons of paper, according to the Alliance for Environmental Innovation (AEI), a national nonprofit organization focused on environmental protection. “Catalogers are more aware of the environmental impact of their paper use and increasingly understand that reducing waste, maximizing recycled content and protecting forests are the right things to do,” says Victoria Mills,

Lately, I’ve been sensing a trend developing that may soon envelope the catalog industry. It’s not a new issue, but one that has, for various reasons, been put on the back burner by the public in recent years. I’m seeing a renewed consciousness among Americans about ecological issues. Here are some of the signs: In March, the City of Boston began a promotional program to compel city residents to recycle more magazines and catalogs. And ForestEthics, a San Francisco-based environmental group, has started advocating that the catalog industry use more recycled paper. Good environmental advocacy, however, looks beyond just paper usage. A study

Under the Canopy’s corporate mission is to offer stylish consumers a way to help eliminate pesticides from their homes, their bodies and the planet. Its corporate history, however, demonstrates that even merchants with timely and unique ideas such as this can get temporarily blindsided by business variables beyond their control. This Boca Raton, FL-based catalog sells high-quality, fashion-forward apparel, bed and bath ware, gifts, footwear and accessories made of organic fiber grown without the use of toxic chemicals. But the company almost didn’t make it out of the start-up phase. A fulfillment fiasco threatened to sideline the business early in its development.

Enough wood to make a 6-foot fence stretching across the United States seven times, or to make copy paper for 18.2 million people. That’s how much the entire catalog industry could save if it used paper composed of just 10-percent postconsumer recycled content, according to experts. A study by the Alliance for Environmental Innovation (the Alliance), a project of Environmental Defense, a nonprofit organization, revealed that despite such potential environmental savings, most catalogers instead print their pages on virgin (non-recycled) paper. Several industry experts largely attribute catalogers’ resistance to using recycled paper to concern about cost and possible decrease in sales. “It’s

Perhaps it’s the image of CEOs and CFOs being led away in handcuffs, or the new corporate fraud bill hastily signed into law during the summer, but lately I’ve been thinking a lot about corporate responsibility. And apparently I’m not alone. Two reports on the topic recently crossed my desk. A study from The Conference Board found that more and more company executives are accepting corporate responsibility as a new strategic and managerial function—complete with bottom-line repercussions—that requires their attention. The other report, this one a Jericho Communications survey of 264 Fortune 1000 CEOs, found that 36 percent of respondents said