A major initiative promoting the sustainable attributes of print, paper, and paper packaging has led to more than 1,260 organisations – including West Water, New Look, BMW and Deutsche Bank – removing misleading statements in their communications, such as ‘Choose e-billing and help save a tree”.
Devised by global environmental advocacy group Two Sides, the campaign has targeted businesses that have previously relied on paper for customer communication but are increasingly shifting their customers to digital platforms to cut costs.
The organisation maintains this transition is often accompanied by misleading and unsubstantiated environmental marketing claims like “Go green – go paperless”.
Data from the 2023 Two Sides ‘Trend Tracker’ report revealed that 55% of European consumers believe that companies’ environmental arguments for switching to digital are misleading and are primarily about reducing company costs. Additionally, the research shows that 76% of consumers want the option to choose and do not want to be forced over to digital communications.
As corporate sustainability gains attention, other sectors like tissue and paper-based packaging are also facing greenwashing, with products being misleadingly marketed as more sustainable, Two Sides claims, with firms often citing spurious environmental reasons, such as the use of new or alternative fibre sources, that are frequently unsubstantiated.
Two Sides Europe Managing Director Jonathan Tame said: “These greenwash claims not only breach established environmental marketing regulations but also harm an industry with a well-established and continually improving environmental track record.
“Far from ‘saving trees,’ a healthy market for forest products, such as paper, encourages the long-term growth of forests through sustainable forest management. Many of the organisations we challenge are surprised to learn that European forests have actually been expanding by the equivalent of 1,500 football pitches every day.”
Globally, Two Sides has engaged over 2,800 organisations making misleading claims about paper.
Tame added: “It remains vital that these misleading messages are challenged to ensure that the industry’s great environmental record is acknowledged and to protect the livelihoods of thousands of people who work in the forest, paper, packaging and print sectors from the impact of opportunistic and deceptive greenwash marketing.”
Two Sides estimates that the widespread influence of some of these organisations means unsubstantiated claims have a lasting negative impact on consumer perceptions of paper, posing a threat to a sector that supports over 640,000 jobs across more than 112,000 European businesses.
The group says the financial impact of greenwashing is also of global concern if these messages continue without challenge. Research conducted by Two Sides and Censuswide in 2021, found that in the European mailing and postal sector alone, greenwashing threatens the loss of €337m of value annually to the industry.
Tame concluded: “We are grateful for the cooperation of the hundreds of organisations that have changed or eliminated greenwashing claims from their messaging, and we are also thankful for the many industry stakeholders and members of the public who send Two Sides examples of greenwash.”
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