4th Annual Holiday Catalog Environmental Scorecard Released-- Some Companies Are Green, Some Are Grinches

This holiday season, the catalog and direct mail industry is showing strong trends toward ‘greener’ forest and paper policies despite several laggards playing ‘grinch’ according to environmental group ForestEthics in its 4th annual ‘Naughty/Nice List’: a scorecard on the catalog & direct mail industry.

Download the two-page ‘Naughty/Nice List’ scorecard >>

Receiving holiday-themed scores of Naughty, Nice, or Checking Twice, 21 companies, including companies in the financial sector, 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.

“Over the past four years, the catalog industry has received an education in how they should think about paper and forests, and how they can help fight deforestation and climate change,” said Ginger Cassady of ForestEthics. “Though the catalog industry still has laggards, consumers’ real concerns apply to the broader direct mail—aka junk mail–sector. That’s why we’ve been working to motivate direct mailers to better their paper policies and standards.”

Among the highlights of the scorecard:

• Naughty. After years of activist pressure, Sears finally released a new paper policy—yet it has loopholes on Endangered Forest and Chain of Custody policy that are, in the words of the scorecard, “big enough to drive a sleigh through.” Citi and Chase didn’t even respond to the scorecard survey as they continue to send millions of pieces of junk mail–sourcing paper from Endangered Forests in the Canadian Boreal and US South. All three companies received coal for their scores, although Sears did earn fruitcake for making improvements on recycled content.

• Nice! Overall paper reduction accounted for a lot of the improvement at the top of the scorecard: Timberland gets high marks for phasing out their catalogs entirely, demonstrating how the best businesses are addressing their environmental impacts while adapting to changing consumer behavior. JC Penney is phasing out its “big book” catalog, moving the company from the “Checking Twice” category into the “Nice”. Both of these companies received across-the-board caribou for their score.
• Checking Twice… Large credit card mailer Capital One moved from “Naughty” to “Checking Twice” by releasing a new paper policy with solid Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) commitments. American Express also made improvements on Endangered Forests and FSC. Both companies' scores suffered due to the continued mailing of enormous quantities of junk mail.

Sears, Lands’ End and J. Crew’s scores suffered due to their greenwashing of their paper with the controversial Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) certification label. According to the scorecard, “the SFI certifies ‘forest destruction as usual’ practices that hurt people, deceive consumers, and cheat taxpayers.”

The ‘Naughty/Nice’ list finds a direct marketing industry embracing e-commerce and demonstrating greater accountability for the various environmental impacts of their business. Laggards remain, however, and the financial sector in particular has yet to fully confront the truth that consumers will no longer be ignored on their calls to end junk mails’ waste, annoyance, and impacts.
The overall trend is one of progress, as a record 11 companies made Santa’s ‘Nice’ list this year, one more than a year ago and nearly four times the number from 2006 (3).

ForestEthics is sponsoring a campaign to establish a national Do Not Mail Registry, and the petition at donotmail.org surpassed 100,000 signatures this year. 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.