Confronted by the evident repercussions of decades of neglecting our environment, every business and individual is encouraged to take an active role in recycling.

Why should businesses monitor their environmental performance? Identifying and controlling your impact whilst demonstrating your commitment to protecting the environment will not only strengthen your brand, but also save costs through improving efficiency, productivity and reducing waste.

So, is direct mail a sustainable, communication resource to use? Yes! The reason being that paper is one of the most recycled products in the world, with recycling rates meeting 70-75% in most regions – generally the maximum recycling rate.[1]

To help maximise sustainability we’ve established some simple, straightforward approaches that can be implemented to make your mailing campaigns even more eco-friendly.

1. Re-Evaluate Plastic Envelopes

Plastic has become the most common form of marine debris and one of the central concerns we see pop up on our news feeds. Businesses are facing more pressure than ever to evaluate whether their plastic packaging is a necessity for their products. But how can you use plastic whilst minimising the consequences of the environment?

Sharp Cat has adopted a compostable and biodegradable polywrap – produced from potato starch. It’s a responsible alternative protecting your mail without leaving harmful toxins, whilst providing a robust and high-quality finish. At the end of its life, it can be thrown into the green bin or compost bin, allowing an enhanced customer experience where they can easily dispose of the packaging.

2. Have Your Data Cleaned

Whilst clean data is critical for the success of any kind of mail advertising, it can also reduce your environmental impact. Segmenting your audience by targeting interested recipients reduces the physical volume of direct mail pieces sent out, lowers costs and increases ROI.

Partially Addressed Mail is another responsible and GDPR friendly way to acquire new prospects, without using their personal data. Offering a solution to cold data lists, it applies data sources such as geo-demographics in order to identify postcodes and households with a strong match for new potential customers.

Personalise your marketing strategy towards those who have expressed interest. Use a returns handling service, such as Mail Opt Out. This provides a simple option for customers to choose to opt out of unwanted mailings whilst keeping your office space uncluttered. Visit mailoptout.co.uk for more details.

3. Only Work With Sustainable Paper Sources

Have you thought about where your printed paper originates from? Deforestation devastation is associated with unsustainable paper stocks. To ensure that your stocks are planted and harvested for paper use all you need to do is choose a printer that buys sustainably sourced paper stocks. Look for print and mail companies with PEFC and FSC papers.

It’s the small changes that add up to big differences in our environment.

[1] Two Sides 2019, Myths & Facts

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Do you wonder how green your mail is?

How eco friendly your last marketing campaign was or what the carbon foot print of your latest leaflet distribution is?

Do you stop to think about how you could do things differently so that what you do is more environmentally sustainable?

The impact that direct mail has on the environment has been a hot topic for some time….

Here at Sharp Cat we strive to be evergreen in all that we do!

To this end, some of the things we would like to mention are that..

We are part of the ISO 14001:2004 environmental quality system. This means that we aim to continually improve our environmental performance – better efficiency, less waste, more recycling.

We use FSC and PEFC accredited, sustainable papers and card stocks for printing and Royal Mail Sustainable® Advertising Mail products.

WHO?

FSC-The Forest Stewardship Council is an international non-profit, multi-stakeholder organization established in 1993 to promote responsible management of the world’s forests

PEFC- Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification- seeks to promote forest management through forest certification at both local and global levels.

These organisations have a common goal to reduce environmental impact, increase recycling and safeguard world resources.

At Sharp Cat we use data update options that save wasted print and post. Digital personalisation options reduce short-run surplus waste whenever appropriate too.

And……everything that can be recycled is: Toner and inks, IT hardware, worn card, paper, envelopes, pallets, pallet wrap, elastic bands, box cartons, teabags – whatever we can think of!

Our electricity supply is partially from green power and we power down all our equipment when it’s not being used.

Finally…………we love seeing things grow so a new forest tree is planted with each and every mailing!

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