GreenPiece: Paper Saves Trees

The campaign message is pretty clear—print to save a tree.

A new educational campaign shows print on paper actually helps to grow trees and keep forests from being sold for development.

A consumer education campaign entitled "Print Grows Trees" recently launched in an effort to dispel the misconception that by using use less print on paper, trees are saved. Facts show that supporting print on paper actually gives landowners the financial incentive they need to keep America's woodlands safe from development and managed in a sustainable manner to contribute important ecosystem benefits such as water, wildlife and carbon sequestration.

Sponsored by the education fund of the nonprofit organization Printing & Graphics Association 
MidAtlantic (PGAMA), "Print Grows Trees" connects consumers to the private landowners who control nearly 60 percent of America's woodlands. Age, demographics and financial pressures are causing these landowners to sell or transfer land at an alarming rate, and an average of 4,000 acres of forest is being converted to development daily.

"This is a pro-print message that helps consumers appreciate the renewable nature of paper from a new perspective," said J. Albert Maddox, Jr., chairman, PGAMA. "The realization that the wood-for-paper equation actually allows landowners to grow more trees, and to manage woodlands in a more sustainable manner, is contrary to popular thinking, but it's an important realization. When these woodlands start to vanish, they take with them all of the ecological benefits we're basically getting for free. We have to support the landowners to continue to get those benefits."

Printed paper also serves many economic and social benefits.

Millions of jobs in the United States—from tree farming to advertising—depend on print. Printing and related jobs are projected to decline by 16 percent and newspaper publishing by 23.2 percent by 2018.

The campaign also stands by the claim that print helps businesses stay profitable.

For instance, research has shown that direct mail is still the most effective way of targeting the right customers with the right message—especially for small businesses, according to the campaign website. Print helps small business owners get and keep customers. And digital advertising works better when it is mixed with print. New techniques in printing, such as print on demand and digital printing mean that fewer pieces of print can have a greater economic effect while decreasing impact on the environment. And when consumers are through with direct mail pieces, catalogs or magazines, they can be recycled, recovered and reused.

Maddox continued, "In a world bombarded by electronic images and media, many forget the value of print to our society. It contributes in economic, social and environmental ways that have not been clearly represented to the public. 'Print Grows Trees' concentrates on the environmental because the misconception that if we stop using print we'll save trees has had a critical impact on not only the print industry, but also on the private landowners who are the keepers of America's trees. We just want people to make their communications' decisions based on facts."

For more information, visit www.printgrowstrees.org.