The perennial problem of unopened mail and its impact on the environment has long bothered sustainability campaigners.

Czyszczewski says businesses should make sure that going green is not just another marketing statement, but a commitment to make a sustainable difference.

Forty-four per cent of all junk mail is thrown in the trash, unopened.

It is expected that each person in the United States alone will receive almost 560 pieces of junk mail this year, which adds up to around 4.5 million tonnes of junk mail in one year alone. Add to this, around 40 per cent of solid wastes in landfills are paper and paperboard waste. By next year, this figure is predicted to hit 48 per cent.

These figures are shocking, which is why many businesses and institutions are promoting preventive measures such as electronic statements and bills as the “green” alternative for their customers.

On the surface, this makes sense.

Making a simple change such as sending a statement using e-mail instead of printing it out and mailing, should reduce the amount of documents printed and the actual cost of printed output.

An e-mail also has a simple creation cycle, from data to implementation. Right? Wrong.

We should question how much impact Web sites-promoting-estatements- because-they-savetrees are really making on the environment. Or is this a case of “green washing” where companies talk more about going green than doing the hard work? The reality is that while e-statements save paper, they also have a negative impact on the environment. We must always consider the lifecycle of an e-statement from the sillicon fab to the data centre, through e-mail, through to the rising e-waste crisis.

Paper and e-statements
The good news is that e-statements are becoming more sustainable. New innovations such as renewable energy sources, server virtualisation and e-waste take-back programmes are making a difference when it comes to the environmental impact of an e-statement.

Likewise, paper statements are becoming more sustainable.

Breakthroughs such as inkjet printers that use less energy, paper with less environmental impact, and mail optimisation systems are helping to reduce waste.

Consumers interested in making sustainable choices need real-world comparisons in the same way calorie displays at fast food outlets can help us make sensible eating decisions.

If businesses and consumers know the environmental costs of the communications they receive and send, it would help them to make the right choices related to the environment.

Green changes in print industry
Traditionally, an inefficiency for statement printers has been the need to heat paper to melt the toner, which includes heating the disused white space around text.

Switching to an inkjet printer that uses less energy by only drying the paper for the amount of ink that is actually used is a good change taking place across the print industry.

Beyond energy, print shops can use paper with recycled content, a lighter weight or made with mechanical pulp, which uses half as many trees as traditional paper.

Using paper with chain of custody certification helps to make sure it comes from sustainable forests.

Mail also has a significant environmental impact and can be optimised by “address cleansing” to reduce returns, postal code sorting, combining statements for households and even the innovative idea of reusable envelopes.

The promotional inserts that are often included with traditional statements are increasingly replaced with promotional material that is printed directly on the white space of the statement as an “onsert”. This technique can reduce the amount of paper mailed per statement and lowers each statement’s negative environmental impact. This new approach is known as TransPromo.

TransPromo creates a smarter statement that offers increased relevance and more targeted communications while generating less waste. In a recent pilot test, the amount of paper used for a statement with inserts was reduced by 40 per cent, or 10 tonnes per million statements.

TransPromo also reduces inventory waste by printing the statement background and the promotional material on demand. More relevant onserts also start to shift consumer perception, by making promotional mail worth opening while delivering higher response rates for businesses.

As consumers change their habits, the industry follows suit as well. Yet not all of those choices we think are green, actually are.

Today’s businesses need to review the sustainability chain to make sure that going green is not just another marketing statement, but a commitment to making a sustainable difference.

• The writer is chief sustainability officer at InfoPrint Solutions Co, a joint venture between Ricoh and IBM’s printing systems division, headquartered in Colorado, United States.