3rd Annual Catalog Environmental Scorecard Released

International environmental group ForestEthics today released its 3rd annual ‘Naughty and Nice’ scorecard ranking the catalog industry—and for the first time, financial junk mailers—on the eco-friendliness of their paper.

Download the two-page ‘Naughty and Nice’ scorecard here.

Receiving holiday-themed scores of Naughty, Nice, or Checking Twice, 21 companies were evaluated according to four criteria: whether or not Endangered Forests are cut to produce the company’s catalogs; whether the company uses Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper; the amount of post-consumer recycled content in the company’s direct mailings; and the company’s efforts to reduce overall paper consumption.

Among the highlights:

• Naughty. Financial services corporation Capitol One earned a big lump of coal for its eagerness to fill American mailboxes with an endless deluge of credit cards, while apparently not caring enough about their impact on Endangered Forests to engage in dialogue with ForestEthics for this scorecard.
• Nice! Houseware retail giant Crate & Barrel unveiled a sterling new policy this year, with commitments to stay out of Endangered Forests. Timberland and Bloomingdales’ catalogs are currently being phased out entirely, providing new evidence that the industry is more deeply integrating online commerce into their marketing strategies. Both of these companies received across-the-board caribou for their score.

"At Crate and Barrel, being environmentally responsible is an ongoing mission,” said Crate & Barrel Manager of Public Relations Vicki Lang. “We are proud of our work with ForestEthics and hope it raises awareness that good business practices and good environmental practices need not be mutually exclusive".

 ForestEthics spokesperson Ginger Cassady added: “Bloomingdales and Crate & Barrel have joined the ranks of companies improving their environmental performance, and in doing so have helped raise the standards of the catalog industry. Public concern for the environment has never been stronger, and consumers expect brands they trust to meet new standards for environmental, social, and economic responsibility.”

The ‘Naughty and Nice’ list finds a direct mail industry in transition, with some companies quickly adopting ‘green’ practices while many others stubbornly clinging to outdated standards. However, the overall trend is one of progress, as 10 companies made Santa’s ‘Nice’ list this year, one more than a year ago and more than three times the number in 2005 (3).

This year’s ‘Naughty and Nice’ list includes junk mailers from the financial sector, which Americans cite as a prime example of junk mail and find annoying and wasteful. ForestEthics is sponsoring a campaign to establish a national Do Not Mail Registry, and the petition at donotmail.org last week surpassed 75,000 signatures. A national registry would allow people a fast, free, and enforceable way to get rid of unwanted junk mail.

100 million trees are logged each year to produce the more then 100 billion pieces of junk mail Americans receive each year, while 89% of Americans support the creation of a Do Not Mail Registry. ForestEthics launched their Do Not Mail campaign on March 12 of this year.