High Tech And Eco Friendly : Demand And Trends

The organization further strengthens its daily sustainable products procurement policy while improving its offer ecological service by adopting solutions in waste disposal and optimizing energy consumption: in just one year, Staples recycled over 63 million ink cartridges (only in the US). Moreover, the company has worked hard to develop over 8000 products with positive environmental characteristics. Staples understands that a successful business is not just about its turnover and profits. It must therefore ensure that all of its employees, suppliers and partners comply with ethical and environmental

Staples, Inc. is a "green" company, and ranked in the top 25 on the Green Power Partner list put out by the EPA (Pallavi, 2006). Nearly 3000 of its office products have at least some recycled content in them. Clearly, Staples has sustainability and the global village in mind. By using recycled content, Staples shows that it is committed to helping people live better lives and reducing the number of items that end up discarded in landfills each year. The paper the company sells and uses is environmentally friendly, and Staples is working on the creation of its own brand of products that are produced with raw materials that are green. The fulfillment center in Maryland is solar powered, and a store in California is also using solar power for at least part of its energy needs (Pallavi, 2006). Strategies to reduce power usage include putting all copiers in the store in "sleep mode" if they go unused for more than 15 minutes, which saves the company more than $1 million every year on its energy bills. That simple step also keeps 11 million pounds of harmful carbon monoxide out of the atmosphere (Dalkir & Warren-Boulton, 2003).

The team quickly shifted and reevaluated the goals of our project and began to design a wide array of other research possibilities. The Team decided upon using the OfficeMax Green Office catalog to put together a set of specific product recommendations that contain prevalent information such as SKU number, pricing, and why it’s a green conscious product. The recommendations are to be a core component of the educational phrase of the project. The list of recommendations are based on and an expansion of a simplified list of environmentally-preferred products offered in the Bear Buy purchasing system at UC Berkeley. The team selected products that were the most environmentally preferable by looking into their recycled content, waste generation, third party certifications, and other metrics. With small roadblock surpassed, the team is ready for the next phrase of the project and Spring

Staples, Inc. became incorporated in 1985 by founders Thomas G. Stemberg and Leo Kahn. 25 years later, Staples, Inc. is the world's largest office products company. The company primarily operates in the United States but also has locations in 26 countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia serving businesses of all sizes and consumers. Their mission statement is, “We're committed to making it easy for our customers around the globe to buy a wide range of office products, supplies, technology, furniture, and business services, including computer repair and copying and printing, to help our customers run their offices efficiently” (Staples Inc., 2010).

In 1985, the office supplies industry was highly fragmented with many companies manufacturing unique products rather than a broader based catalog. Larger wholesalers were few, so consumers had to order supplies from several companies rather than from one immediate location. New technologies were also finding their place into businesses such as personal computers, fax machines and copiers. This created a demand for a wider variety of office supplies. Economically, the country was turning itself out of a recession and many small businesses were born from major layoffs in the early eighties. These companies needed a quick and reliable way of purchasing supplies.

Taking all of this into consideration, we came up with the initial project idea of creating our own set of comprehensive procurement guidelines. These would be quantified, clear, and concise. However, we soon found that this project would be logistically difficult to complete and implement, given our resources and timeline. We also realized that the current guidelines are already available to UCLA staff, who, as the survey data indicated, are largely unaware of them. For this reason, simply updating the existing guidelines would have likely had little effect in changing purchasing behavior. The need for an educational component quickly became apparent - indeed, nearly 50% of survey participants identified a lack of awareness/knowledge of sustainable products as the biggest obstacle to the sustainable procurement of office supplies at UCLA.

Proper marketing and understanding of the consumer needs have always been strong suites of the print industry and could be carried over into a new consumer need, sustainability. Corporations and consumers are now paying closer attention to companies and their actions as it pertains to environmental impact. One area where the industry has adapted well is providing the consumer with substrates that reduce, or enable recycling or re-use. When it comes to how corporations regulating environmental issues, the print industry has not quite caught up. Corporations are looking at greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants often involved in the industry. This being said, companies in the industry are beginning to ask

Leafy Green Office Supplies (LGOS) is an organization that addresses the needs of local consumers and offices with an environmentally friendly bent. The company will serve a wide range of customers: individual consumers (walk ins), office accounts, and government agencies in the area. The company will sell eco-friendly products that use recycled materials, recharged toners and cartridges, and non-toxic alternatives. LGOS will also sell recycled papers ranging from copier paper to all sizes of envelopes. LGOS has identified three basic market segments: corporations in the area that have a 10 percent growth rate and 9500 potential customers; 2) governmental agencies with an 11 percent growth rate and 4600 potential customers, and, 3) Assorted clientele with a 7 percent growth rate and 65000 potential customers.

The environmental benefits would be significant if companies switched to a paperless office. “Each year the switch would: Save 16.5 million trees (2.3 million tons of wood). Decrease emission of greenhouse gasses by 3.9 billion pounds, the equivalent of taking 355,000 cars off the road and reduce fuel consumption by 26 million BTUs, enough energy to provide residential power to San Francisco for a year” (e.g., Abbott, K. 2008).

Through the economic perspective there are also benefits present in going green, an obvious benefit of green actions is savings. Going paperless saves you money when you pay bills online. Likewise, if you use compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), you save money on energy costs. {3} According to Energy Star, each fluorescent bulb you replace an incandescent bulb with will use 75 percent less energy. If you replace a 100-watt incandescent bulb with a 25-watt CFL, you will save over $100 per year, based on U.S. Department of Energy figures {4}. The greatest beneficiary of these changes is the environment as there are several key benefits to the environment if you recycle and reuse products rather than buy new. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) {5}, recycled products use less energy to produce than items produced from raw materials because the energy costs associated with collecting the raw materials have been eliminated or reduced. It can therefore reduce pollution and help conserve the natural resources. When trees are not harvested for paper products, the carbon dioxide sequestered within the plant material is not released into the

This report explores corporate sustainability and the social, environmental and financial performance of International Paper Company. “Today we see a growing momentum to reduce carbon footprints and co-create new social and economic structures.” (http://www.interfaceglobal.com/ Company/Leadership-Team/Ray-Watch. aspx) Sustainability consists of environmental and social performance as well as financial performance. Companies which can incorporate these strong values and cultures are becoming more the norm than not. Many studies now show that most companies have adapted some form of sustainability with some doing so at a higher level than others.

Office machines represent the second largest product segment, accounting for an estimated 28.5% of industry revenue. Equipment includes shredders, calculators, label makers, cash registers, time clocks and binding equipment. Although this segment represents a large portion of revenue, it has declined during the past five years. Many of the products in this segment have been deemed obsolete by technological change, a primary reason as to why retailers are reducing retail space in their stores.

Of the above mentioned, the office supplies alone constitute a 1000 billion market. Most of the stationery company’s which want to earn quick profit are entering into notebook business. It is one of the most profitable in the stationery sub-category. A large amount of competition is seen in the pen market which is dominated by players like Cello, Reynolds, Linc etc.

Expanded ecological mindfulness and green generation is another social-cultural variable that influences the organization in a positive way. With respect to this element, the organization has consistently been diverting endeavors towards improving the execution of the items. It endeavors to accomplish this by changing the packaging, lessening the remain by electric utilization, and chipping away at their corporate social obligation (Knight and Cavusgil 2004). The issue is whether the organization is passing on this plainly to buyers to make them see that it is a environment friendly organization.

Selling environmentally friendly products and services has gone mainstream. Not only is this good for the planet, it 's also great news for your business because consumers are often willing to pay more for products that protect the natural environment by conserving energy or resources and reducing the use of toxic agents, pollution and waste. The vast diversity and availability