What is the Environmental Impact of the Paper Industry?

Nine large U.S. companies on Wednesday committed themselves to achieving a major sustainability goal — and three of them are retailers. Walmart, Starbucks and Nike are among the firms joining RE100, a global initiative led by The Climate Group to engage, support and showcase influential businesses committed to 100% renewable electricity. Other firms joining the campaign include Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Salesforce, Steelcase, Voya Financial. The commitment to use 100% renewable energy is not a new one for Walmart.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a $1.5 million Diesel Emission Reduction Act grant to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) that ultimately will remove tons of air pollution from diesel-fueled activities at and near the Port of Portland. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy visited Portland to announce the grant at an event at Northwest Container Services with Oregon DEQ Administrator Dick Pedersen. Amongst other projects, the EPA-funded grant will assist local companies in replacing 23 heavy-duty short-haul diesel trucks, traveling more than 1.3 million miles in the Portland metro area each year. West Linn Paper Company will play a significant role in the project as the future owner of at least twelve of the new trucks. The company will take older, less efficient equipment out of use and replace it with new vehicles with improved energy efficiency and more effective filters to remove emissions. The positive impact to the environment will be significant – West Linn Paper anticipates that the project will result in a 20% improvement in fuel economy, and filters capable of removing as much as 90% of the tailpipe emissions.

Two Sides was recently flooded with complaints from around the world about unsubstantiated anti-paper environmental claims used by Dropbox, Inc. to encourage the use of its digital services. In an email distributed globally, the digital document management and storage company claimed that “Less Paper = More Trees,” using Dropbox is “more earth-friendly,” and that people can “do their part for the planet” and “secure the future of forests” by using Dropbox. With nearly 17 million paying customers and millions more who use its free service, Dropbox’s misleading claims are damaging consumer and business decision-maker perceptions of paper’s environmental sustainability and threatening the livelihoods of millions of people in the global paper, printing and mail sector. Two Sides wrote to the company’s CEO urging Dropbox to stop using these types of deceptive environmental claims about paper. Now, we’re asking our members to amplify the urgency of our request with letters of your own.