THE FNS PAPER CAMPAIGN

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THE FNS PAPER CAMPAIGN

• November, 2003

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FEDERAL NETWORK FOR SUSTAINABILITY

• A group of federal agencies in the Western U.S.
  signed a Statement of Unity on sustainability in
  April 2000
• FNS has grown from the original 11 members to
  over 20 members
• Key projects include
• Environmental Management System
• Electronics
• Copier Paper
• Green Power

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WHY PAPER?

• Resource intensive
• About 42 of the wood harvested for industrial
  use goes to making paper.
• In the U.S., the pulp and paper industry is the
  second largest consumer of energy and uses more
  water to produce a ton of product than any other
  industry.
• High volume of use
• An average office worker uses about 10,000 sheets
  of copier paper per year!
• In 1997, the Federal government purchased roughly
  18.1 billion sheets of copier paper.

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WHY PAPER?

• High Cost
• Office paper is the fastest growing use of paper.
  The cost of printing, copying, mailing, storing
  and disposing can exceed the initial price by as
  much as 10 times!

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WHAT IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SUPPOSED TO BUY?

• 48 CFR 11.303(b)requires no less than 30 post
  consumer materials for paper.
• Note It does not specify chlorine free.

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FNS PAPER CAMPAIGN RAISING THE BAR

• Higher post-consumer recycled content.
• No chlorine bleaching.
• No old-growth forest content.

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THE FNS PAPER CAMPAIGN

• Three-pronged approach
• Reduce paper use
• Buy greener paper
• Recycle and/or reuse the paper that is used

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FNS PAPER CAMPAIGN

• Collect baseline information
• How much paper is purchased and used
• How paper is purchased and from whom
• Develop tiered level of participation
• Provide education and one-on-one technical
  assistance
• Implement greener practices
• Measure results

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THE FNS UNIVERSE

• Sixteen organizations representing 11 agencies at
  the start of campaign.
• FNS member organizations represent over 160,000
  people.
• Total Paper Consumption
• Over 67,000 cartons of paper
• 1, 700 tons of paper
• 340 million sheets of paper
• a paper trail of 60,000 miles

Does not include the Army Corp of Engineers
Based on survey results estimates
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67,000 cartons 27,000 TREES
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ITS NOT JUST ABOUT TREES ANNUAL ENVIRONMENTAL
ENERGY IMPACTS

• Energy Usage 56 billion BTUs
• Net Greenhouse Gases (CO2 Equivalents) 8.4
  million pounds
• Solid Wastes 3.2 million pounds
• Effluent Flow 29 million gallons
• Wood 8 million pounds

Figures derived from the Paper Calculator
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AND ITS NOT JUST ABOUT NUMBERS
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CHALLENGES

• Perception of inferior performance
• Organizational Challenges
• Decentralized purchase of paper
• Unclear who ultimately makes paper purchase
  decision
• Resistance to change by end users
• Price Differential

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THE PRICE PICTURE

• Range for 30 24 - 32
• Range for greener paper 30 - 50
• Price differential 13 - 25 higher

This is an anomaly. Price represents small
volume purchase.
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WAYS TO BRING THE PRICE DOWN...

• Increase demand
• Among FNS members
• Leverage other large institutional purchasers
• Companies
• States and local governments
• Look to cooperative purchasing mechanisms

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WAYS TO BRING THE PRICE DOWN...

• Bring delivery costs down
• Where and why do delivery costs build up?
• Buy and use less paper
• Establish goals to match price differential.
• For example, if anticipated price increase is
  20, establish goal to reduce paper use by an
  equivalent 20.
• Multiplied environmental
• and economic benefits

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QUESTIONS?

• Contact us at paper_at_federalsustainability.org
  or
• Barbara Lither (lither.barbara_at_epa.gov) or
• Eun-Sook Goidel (esgoidel_at_pprc.org)
• Be sure to check out the paper website
• www.federalsustainability.org/
• initiatives/gfcp.htm