Inspiring Paper Stories
Laura Hickey is a paper hero. She wouldn't say that, as she's very humble, but she has saved thousands of trees and tons of paper from being wasted. She has helped National Wildlife Federation "walk the talk." She has collaborated with major paper companies to offer greener products and she has encouraged many organizations to change their paper practices as well.
Laura remembers participating in NWF's Wildlife Week activities when she was a child. In high school, the Wildlife Week poster featured an endangered gray wolf, which she hung up in her room. Her love of wildlife lead her to study biology in college and she entered the work force knowing she wanted to do something different. In 1986, she interviewed for a job as a buyer in the purchasing department. As she walked down the hall, she saw that same gray wolf poster on the wall, and she knew the National Wildlife Federation was the place for her.
In 1986, the National Wildlife Federation did not not purchase paper made from recycled fiber. This type of paper had a bad reputation for falling apart in printing. Also, as Laura said, "When I started there was no connection between the business side and the environmental side of our work." NWF purchased paper directly from printers, and no printers wanted to pay extra for recycled paper.
At the same time, thousands of people were writing letters to NWF, asking why the magazines were not printed on paper made with recycled content. Laura started researching. Until then, the quality of this paper had been very poor, and certainly not at the industry standards for magazines. Laura worked with NWF's CEO and President Jay Hair to write letters to every major paper mills in the United States. Two said they would start making magazine-quality (or coated) paper with recycled fiber. One was the predecessor to Stora Enso, a company which continues to provide NWF paper products today.
In the early 1990s, NWF was a founding member of CERES, a coalition of investors, environmentalists and public interest groups who explicitly consider environmental factors in their investment decisions. CERES advocates having third party audits of business practices. NWF's audit showed we could do a lot in the areas of paper recycling and purchasing. Many of these changes ended up saving NWF money, such as fewer landfill tipping fees.
Through the years, Laura helped implement other practices to improve the environmental sustainability of NWF's paper purchasing:
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Chlorine: NWF worked hard to buy paper that had not been bleached by chlorine, a chemical very damaging to the environment. Laura worked with NWF's paper vendors to purchase chlorine-free paper. At first, it cost NWF $100,000 per year as a premium fee for this type of paper, but now it is down to less than $30,000 per year.
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Green Certification: The Forest Stewardship Council certifies paper and wood products as being produced sustainably. Laura has worked with our paper vendors over the years to include more and more wood pulp from FSC-certified sources. Now our magazines are FSC-certified.
Getting Others On Board: Laura has invited many other groups, such as National Geographic, the Nature Conservancy and AARP to the table to meet with our green paper vendors. NWF is a member of the Environmental Paper Network where Laura has helped with many initiatives. -
Reducing the Magazine Size: Laura worked with NWF's magazine staff to shrink the magazines by about a quarter inch around, without sacrificing the good stories we bring to our members and subscribers. This is called reducing the trim size. It saved 8% of NWF's paper use.
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Reducing Paper Weight: Paper comes in various weights, known as "basis weights." NWF's magazines used to be printed on 70 pound basis weight. Laura experimented, bringing the basis weight down to 60, then 55, then 50 and sometimes now as low as 45 pounds. This saves 24-30% of NWF's paper use. Laura would test to see if lowering the basis weight would cause magazine readers to complain, or if people could even tell the difference when holding the magazines in their hand. No complaints came and many staff could not even tell the difference.
Today NWF prints four magazines: National Wildlife®, Ranger Rick®, Your Big Backyard® and Wild Animal Baby®. The combined circulation is 1.9-2.2 million monthly. We also print direct mail and we include in our paper footprint the catalogs which are produced by another company licensing our name. Laura says NWF's total paper use is about 23 million pounds of paper per year, which is about the same weight as 1,493 African male elephants. The work Laura does to reduce paper use is significant!
Looking to the future, Laura hopes paper purchasing just get greener. She hopes more vendors will offer paper that is made from:
- 100 percent post-consumer fiber - right now it is easy to get copy paper with 100 percent recycled fiber, but difficult to get "coated" or magazine quality paper above 30 percent
- chlorine-free bleaching processes
- FSC-certified pulp grown in the US
- agricultural waste (such as wheat, straw or sugar cane) grown in the United States
- energy-efficient non-polluting paper mills
But that future depends on more people recycling the paper they use every day. Paper recyclers love paper from offices and homes - known as "white office waste" - because it is easy to de-ink, clean from other garbage and good quality fiber. You can help by participating in your office's paper recycling program or starting a paper recycling program. NWF works with the Environmental Paper Network and the Building Office Management Association to encourage more companies to recycle paper.
At the National Wildlife Federation, it has been a long road to sustainable paper purchasing. It took Laura 15 years to get an official policy that staff must purchase environmentally preferable paper. She said it is important that these practices are real policies to ensure future employees carry on these good practices. She encourages all organizations to make these policies.
"Most environmental organizations assume staff will just do the right thing, but it takes constant reinforcement and sometimes they just don't know about these things," says Laura. "If we can't do the right things, we shouldn't ask others to do the right things."
Laura is a true paper hero for NWF and for wildlife. You might think she would get tired of talking about paper but it is her life's passion.
"I love paper. It is something that touches everybody's life. Everybody uses paper at one point - from toilet paper to writing. It's tactile, portable and there is nothing better than lying in bed with the paper or a good book. I love being able to work with people on environmentally preferable paper!"
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