Converting to Environmental Papers -- Without Paper

"I'd consider buying recycled paper, but I don't know what's available or where to get it." I kept hearing that over and over from paper buyers during the past several years. For 15 years, until 1997, I'd worked in many different capacities with Conservatree Paper Company, the environmental paper distributor that created the market for recycled printing and writing papers.

When the company closed at the end of 1997, I knew that the recycled paper markets were sliding (from a high of 10% down to around 6-7% now), and that there were almost no sources left from which people could get reliable answers to the many questions they needed answered before they were willing to switch papers. I also knew I had many of those answers. I just needed a way to get them out to people.

We Needed a Way to Reach Millions

So, with the blessing of the former company's founder and president (who was going on to other, non-environmental projects), I converted the education and advocacy side of Conservatree into a nonprofit organization, with The Tides Center as our nonprofit fiscal agent. One of Conservatree's former paper salespersons and researchers, Gerard Gleason, joined me. As a nonprofit, we would not sell paper, as the company had, but we would provide the ssame kind of cutting edge, industry-savvy information the company was known for. I'd started the company's first newsletter in 1988, so I've been in the midst of these issues for a long time. And I wanted a way to create enough critical mass among paper buyers that we could make environmental papers at least 90% of the paper market, instead of the small percentage it holds now.

"We knew we'd be operating on a shoestring, and probably a fraying one, at that. So how could we make our information and assistance as visible and accessible as possible?"

For more than a decade, Conservatree had compiled an annual list of all the environmentally sound printing and writing papers available in the U.S. and Canada. Gerard had compiled the last listing in 1997. Despite its being highly regarded, probably not more than a couple thousand people ever saw it in its printed form. We had all the data, plus long experience with the papers and the paper manufacturers. We knew how to update the list most reliably yet economically, but didn't want to settle for a couple thousand readers. The answer was obvious….

Why Not Put It All Online?

The Internet seemed perfect. Then it would be accessible to everyone and "I don't know what's available" would no longer be an obstacle to developing the environmental paper markets. But was the online option really the best choice? How many of the people we wanted to reach were actually online?

We knew our audience:

• Government and corporate purchasers, most of whom are online (a few local governments still file their records in shoeboxes, but even they are getting Internet access);
• Recycling coordinators who need to answer questions raised when they initiate Buy Recycled Paper campaigns both within their governments and in their local communities - virtually all of them seem to be online;
• Printers and paper vendors who are being asked by their customers to get papers with which they're not always familiar;
• Environmental activists, who often want to promote environmental paper use but have been inadequately informed in the past - almost all seem to be well-wired, even when they're operating with very limited resources, because their issues are ultimately global;
• Small businesses and individual consumers who are looking for small quantities and really care about the issues - this group probably has the widest range, from those who are extremely technically sophisticated, to those who are online but may not know how to use their computers or the Internet well, to those who haven't ventured online yet - but will someday;
• Others, such as media, policymakers, researchers (including school kids writing reports!) - most of whom are online.

Given our limited financial resources, and the fact that most of the people we wanted to reach have online access, especially the ones who could make the greatest impact (major buyers, environmental paper campaign organizers, printers, vendors, policymakers), it was clear that we could go farthest in solving the "information problem" by publishing online. I have to say that it seemed a little bit of an anomaly to me-here we were, planning to promote environmental paper purchasing, yet not using paper. In the past, we'd printed our newsletters and guides on many different kinds of paper so people could see for themselves how beautiful and high quality environmental papers are. At the same time, an important part of our environmental message is to use only the paper you really need to use. We didn't want to give people more paper to lose in their files, pile up on their desks, or throw in the recycling bin. It made sense to provide the information paper-free-and always at their fingertips-so they could choose exactly the papers they needed, when they needed them.

Developing A Functional Database

Then our question became, what format should we use to publish this listing of environmental papers? The logical answer seemed to be an interactive database, where Web site visitors could put in the criteria they wanted in their paper, then get lists that met that criteria. But I decided that would perpetuate some of the other problems people have in choosing recycled paper.

There are a distressing number of myths floating about, such as that recycled paper costs way too much, or it jams in copiers, or it voids equipment warranties. None of these myths are true, but they persist. One of the striking factors I've discovered in following many of them to their sources is that often the problem resulted from people using the wrong type of paper-NOT the fact that the paper had recycled content, but that ANY paper, whether recycled or not, would have caused the problems they encountered because they were not matching the right type of paper to their job. But, of course, they immediately jumped to the conclusion that recycled content must be causing the problems. I could see that many people need help in figuring out how to choose the right kind of paper. (In the paper industry, it's called the "grade" of paper. You use a different kind of paper in a copy machine than you would use on a printing press, and you don't use letterhead paper, which is very expensive, for projects like direct mail.)

I also had seen on many other interactive databases that if you don't know what's reasonable to expect in the market, you could easily end up with answers that are unintelligible. For example, if you ask for paper that's 100% recycled, totally chlorine free, and 100% tree free, you won't get any answers because the criteria are mutually exclusive. But if you don't know that, you may think that there just aren't any environmental papers that meet your needs, and miss the dozens of papers that actually would have met your needs.

So I decided to do a text-based table format, with a different table for each grade of paper and descriptions of what each type of paper is used for. In order to work from the other side as well, I developed a listing of possible paper projects people may have, along with discussions of the different types of paper one could use for them and why you might choose one type over another, depending on the effect you want to create and your budget. Also, in presenting tables for each grade, people could see the wide range of environmental attributes and combinations of them from which to choose. In other words, I wanted to find a way to help guide people to make good choices for the environment, for their project, and for their pocketbook.

Another Advantage Of Going Online

In updating our paper listing with the paper mills, I discovered another advantage to going online. When we published on paper, we were bound by the size of the page. We crammed a lot of information onto it, but much of it was cryptic, abbreviated, and sometimes hard to decipher. Now, when a mill asked us to put a Registered or Trademark symbol on their brand name, or list a certification, or explain different environmental contents for different colors of the same brand of paper, or especially when we wanted to identify the tree free content or warn paper buyers that they have to ask for the particular environmental attributes or the mill will give them virgin paper - we had as much room as we needed to add and clarify information.

Best of all, we won't ever have to research this list again and it can always be current. When we published our list on paper, buyers had to deal with increasingly outdated information until we re-researched and published our next annual listing. But with our new online listing, as we learn of new papers or changes, we can simply correct the information on our Web site. Visitors can trust they're always getting the most up-to-date information possible.

Designing the listing online was more of a challenge than I had expected. I enlisted the help of a Web designer to coach me through the effects I wanted that were well beyond my rudimentary Web site programming skills, but I still had to learn a lot more than I had intended in order for the site to turn out as I wanted. There's still a lot of information to write and put up on the site, and there are more design effects I want to add, but Conservatree's Environmentally Sound Printing and Writing Paper Listing is there, to the delight of purchasers all over the continent who had been asking for it for months. I'm already hearing from people in other parts of the world, as well.

Launching Change From A Web Site

I see this Web site as launching a whole new development phase in the process of converting paper production to a far more earth-sensitive system. Many organizations can mobilize people to choose environmental papers, but they've gotten stopped in the past by the logical first questions: "Okay, what should I buy, where do I get it, and how do I deal with the cost?" Now Conservatree can provide those answers, as well as team up with organizations to provide our technical assistance in walking purchasers through the process of turning commitment into reality. Through this one Web site, we believe we'll be able to spread reliable and persuasive information far and wide, to the millions of people we wanted to reach, through the networking and outreach of lots of other organizations.

In addition, in the past, the paper industry, which primarily sells virgin (non-recycled, woodbased, chlorine-bleached) papers, had the upper hand. They have tens of thousands of sales reps, distributors and vendors, lots of advertising, and a direct route to the printers, who buy more than half the paper. But now, Conservatree can provide counterpoints to their arguments, answer buyers' and printers' questions, show the wide range of options, and access all the same people those reps, vendors and advertisements reach-at just the touch of a keystroke.

Paper industry focus groups indicate that people don't want to spend a lot of time thinking and learning about something as commonplace as paper. But the choices people make in buying papers are really critical choices about what kind of world they want-one that continues to destroy and waste resources while producing toxins, or one that values resources, creates a healthy environment, and minimizes waste. By going online, we believe we're making it much easier for people to quickly get the information they need to make good choices, then get on with enjoying life on this wonderful planet.