Preserving Biodiversity and Forests: Xerox and Paper

As one of the largest distributors of paper for office printers and copiers, Xerox recognizes its obligation to responsibly source paper. Recognizing that challenges facing the paper industry extend beyond the paper companies themselves, our strategy utilizes a multi-pronged approach. Through partnerships with our customers, suppliers and key stakeholders, our long-term goal is to support a sustainable paper cycle. Starting with the source of the fiber used to make the paper, through its manufacture and use, Xerox strives to minimize environmental impact while meeting our customers’ exacting business needs.

Paper Sourcing Guidelines
For companies that provide paper to Xerox for resale, we phased in stringent requirements from 2003 to 2005 that cover all aspects of papermaking, from forest management to production of finished goods. On an annual basis, Xerox suppliers are expected to submit detailed documentation verifying conformance.

Xerox’s requirements seek to ensure that suppliers have the following key elements in place:

  • Commitment to compliance with all applicable environmental, health and safety regulatory requirements, including forestry codes of practice and regulations governing legal harvesting of wood
  • An environmental management system for mills and objectives for continual improvement in environmental performance above and beyond regulatory compliance
  • An effective procurement process that:

    • – Ensures the exclusion of illegally harvested wood raw materials

    – Ensures the exclusion of wood raw materials derived from forest areas of significant ecological or
    cultural importance unless certified to a sustainable forest management standard that has been accepted
    by Xerox

    – Encourages all suppliers of wood raw materials to practice sustainable forest management

    – Strictly limits the use of hazardous materials, including the exclusion of elemental chlorine, in the
    processing and content of Xerox papers

  • Shows efforts to reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and water use.

We recognize that one of the challenges paper companies face in meeting Xerox’s requirements is to demonstrate that they are safeguarding forest areas of significant ecological or cultural importance. Xerox supports multi-stakeholder efforts to develop information sources and tools that will help suppliers identify these areas on their own forestlands and in their procurement of wood raw materials from third-party lands. Xerox expects its suppliers to take full advantage of these resources as part of their efforts toward sustainable forestry.

Partnership with The Nature Conservancy
In 2010, Xerox extended our long-term partnership with The Nature Conservancy by making an additional grant of $1 million over the next four years. The agreement builds on the work of the Forest Conservation Partnership between Xerox and The Nature Conservancy, which began in October 2006 with an initial investment of $1 million.

Much of the work during the first phase of the partnership focused on the protection of the Boreal forest in Canada. Xerox supported the launch and deployment of the Canadian Boreal Information Centre, linking forest data and information to diverse users across continents with the goal of improving resource management, monitoring and conservation planning. The partnership also supported activities aimed at successful and full implementation of the High Conservation Value (HCV) concept in the Boreal forest, a key tool for identifying priority habitats. HCV forests have conservation, biodiversity or social values considered to be of outstanding significance or critical importance.

Work supported by the second $1 million grant began in January of 2010, with a focus on:

  • Developing and testing a forest carbon methodology for improved forest management that would allow landowners to achieve forest certification and serve as a platform for potential carbon benefits
  • Strengthening a key tool for identifying priority habitats – the HCV approach – by building consistency across projects, disseminating standards and training assessors through global and regional HCV networks
  • Promoting responsible forestry through implementation of forest management standards by working with Xerox suppliers and other land managers at two sites in North America: Central-Western New York; and across the Canadian Boreal forest, including a focused project in Northwest Ontario.

In addition to the above requirements that apply to all Xerox paper suppliers, Xerox also markets specific papers with other environmental attributes:

Sustainable Forest Management-Certified Papers
Xerox has introduced papers that comply with sustainable forest management standards, including Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). FSC-certified papers use raw materials from an FSC-certified source, controlled wood sources or post-consumer reclaimed sources. As a requirement for displaying the FSC label on its papers, Xerox earned FSC Chain-of-Custody certification from the Rainforest Alliance’s SmartWood program.

Xerox has also earned PEFC Chain-of-Custody certification.

Recycled Paper
Recycled content is another way Xerox reduces the environmental impact of its papers – offering papers ranging from 20% to 100% post-consumer recycled content. Our recycled papers use post-consumer waste and/or recycled fiber in place of new pulp. Recycled products are required to meet the same strict performance specifications as virgin products, and are designed for optimal performance in Xerox equipment.

Efficient Use of Paper
Xerox equipment and software are designed with features that allow customers to make efficient use of paper including reliable two-sided (duplex) printing. In mid-2010, Xerox integrated the “earth smart” feature into its global print driver. “Earth smart” brings several resource-saving settings together at the single click of a button, such as duplex, n-up, proof print and toner saving modes, thus making it easier for customers to make responsible print choices. Xerox Enterprise Print Services customers have access to sophisticated print management and reporting tools, such as Xerox Print Agent, which provide additional methods of encouraging and tracking responsible print behavior. Software products such as DocuShare®, SMARTsend®, and FreeFlow®, Digital Workflow Collection help Xerox customers reduce paper consumption by facilitating electronic data management, scan to e-mail, print-on-demand and distribute-then-print workflows.

Deinkability
In recent years deinkability has become an area of increasing concern, particularly among our graphic communications customers. Ensuring that prints produced with Xerox equipment and materials can be responsibly managed at the end of their useful life is an important consideration in our product development process. When appropriate, independent testing is utilized to confirm that these prints pose no unique challenges to the recycling stream. While the deinkability of xerographic prints has long been demonstrated, a key milestone for a new technology came in 2010 when the new Xerox Production Inkjet printer achieved a “Good Deinkability” rating from INGEDE, the international association of the deinking industry.

For more information on Xerox paper, visit www.xerox.com/sustainablepaper.