More hoops needed

A little surprised to see the White Pages directory in my letterbox this week, hadn’t seen them in so long I thought they’d gone extinct.

Even a little more surprised to see these:

Very blurry, but that logo on the left says “Carbon Neutral Product”. The RedCycle logo on the right is, as you may know, the soft plastics recycling program that imploded just a couple months ago in November 2022.

I looked up how they earned their carbon neutrality rating (through offsets), and wondered if they have any clue how much waste they’re creating:

In an article where their head of sustainability is interviewed, I got the sense they’re genuinely trying to make a positive change, or at least look like they are – but the biggest defence of the printed books was that they’re recyclable. In fact, it was a point she made against going digital: “Printed products have a lot of positive qualities that online products don’t, such as recyclability.”

Now THAT is some beast mode greenwashing.

When you produce millions of books per year that get posted, are wrapped in plastic, your paper sourcing had it’s own tender process, and all to produce and distribute books nobody wants, at some point you have to realise that recycling doesn’t magically reverse all that.

That’s not even single use—most of these will go straight in the bin without disturbing the plastic.

They said they’re aiming to reduce emissions by 5% year on year, which is something, but that’s a hard target when you’re starting with a couple hundred-thousand tonnes of emissions every year (offset sure, but still produced).

Being completely blunt, unless their plans over the next few years are seriously disruptive to themselves, it comes across as pretty tone deaf.

Not printing the books would make an epic dent in that number, but they sell advertising based on the number of books distributed (crazy right). My bet is the they won’t do it, so what’d be the alternative?

The digital platform is already there, which they could invest heavier into. Yes there are emissions there too which’d have to be worked out. Others have suggested an opt-in or opt-out system so folks who still want the books can get them.

Our mail room was littered with discarded White Pages books, and I can’t imagine we’re a unique case.

What do you think – does any of this sound like the kind of thing that should qualify as Carbon Neutral, or should orgs like this have to jump through more hoops to manage their own waste, as opposed to setting advertising rates reliant on them 🤔