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How Small Offices Can Save 22 Trees, One Car's Annual Emissions and More

If your company wants to make a difference environmentally, one place to start is with your choice of office paper.

Published 7 years ago | About a 2 minute read

If your company wants to make a difference environmentally, one place to start is with your choice of office paper.

We've designed our Eco-Calculator to measure the impact of your paper purchases on the environment.

Paper companies need to clean up

Truth be told, the pulp and paper industry can be pretty hard on Mother Nature. It logs and replants trees, uses chemicals and too much water, creates waste, emissions and smog, and draws a lot of energy.

At Rolland, where we use up to 100% recycled paper in our products and have committed ourselves to responsible forest management for virgin paper, we have made significant gains in lessening our environmental impact. We use biogas energy instead of fossil fuels, reducing our carbon dioxide emissions by 70,000 tons annually or the equivalent of taking 23,400 compact cars off the road every year. And we use six times less water than the industry average.

We like to help other companies also make significant gains. This is where the Eco-Calculator comes in handy.

Let's look at those packages of 500 sheets you tear open when the office copier needs to be replenished. Each one weighs five pounds. If you're a small office and you use 10 of those each week, that adds up to 2,600 pounds of office paper a year. Let's punch that 2,600 figure into the Eco-Calculator and choose Rolland Enviro Copy – the 100% post-consumer paper is especially made for photocopies. Compared to buying the same amount of non-recycled paper from the average paper manufacturer, here is what your office will save environmentally:

22 trees
80,702 litres of water – 231 days of water consumption for the average American
989 kg waste – 20 large dumpsters
3,245 kg carbon dioxide – emissions from a car for an entire year
19 gigajoules of energy – 89,684 60W light bulbs for one hour
4 kg nitrous oxide – emissions from one truck for 13 days.

All those savings are for one year from one small office changing its paper company. Imagine your entire building, your city block or your entire industry doing this. It all starts with one new paper order.

Environmental logos can also be downloaded to print on a company's documents. They spread the word about ecological savings and let others know you're taking the environment into account.

The Eco-Calculator shows you how your office can lessen its impact on the environment, while downloading the logos will show everyone how you did it. You'll be able to convert your responsible choices into hard numbers and real-world examples. And the benefits will make a difference for us all.

Read more about Rolland at http://www.rollandinc.com.