UK Greetings has today (June 3) announced that all of its single greeting cards will be offset through the global conservation charity World Land Trust’s Carbon Balanced Paper programme.
This news, which comes two days before World Environment Day (June 5), is one of the largest commitments to date under the Carbon Balanced Paper programme. It will see UK Greetings offsetting almost 10,000 tonnes of CO2e relating to the manufacturing of the board used to produce its 200 million cards a year.
This is the latest step in UK Greetings’ pledge to make its business ever more sustainable. The company set up its Environmental Steering Group back in 2018 and has been making progress on many fronts since then. (https://www.pgbuzz.net/ukg-takes-a-strong-stance-on-reducing-avoidable-waste/) This has included taking a lead on making cards naked, thereby massively reducing the whole industry’s single-use plastic (https://www.pgbuzz.net/ukg-urges-its-indie-customers-to-go-naked/), re-engineering products (https://www.pgbuzz.net/ukg-innovates-with-plastic-free-pick-and-mix-charity-multipack-concept/) as well as through its logistics. (https://www.pgbuzz.net/ukg-ups-its-environmental-pledge-becoming-the-first-uk-company-to-join-kuehnenagels-net-zero-carbon-programme/)
As Chris Shaw, head of sustainability at UK Greetings, commented, “UKG is committed to reducing our impacts in every aspect of our business. Since 2019, we have removed over 250 tonnes of single use plastic from our cards and reduced our carbon footprint by 400 tonnes simply by improving our energy efficiency.”
He adds that with paper being the primary raw material of UKG products, the publisher works closely with its suppliers “to help ensure that every single card and paper product can be physically traced back to sustainably managed forests. Choosing Carbon Balanced Paper was therefore a natural next step in our sustainability journey. We are thrilled to support World Land Trust in their efforts to protect the world’s most biologically significant and threatened habitats.”
By choosing Carbon Balanced Paper, UK Greetings will fund the protection of 635 acres of threatened habitat in the Khe Nuoc Trong region of Vietnam.
World Land Trust’s largest Carbon Balanced project, Khe Nuoc Trong, is spread over 52,000 acres in the Annamite Mountain Range of North-Central Vietnam. A precious remnant of biodiverse tropical forest in a land blighted by deforestation, Khe Nuoc Trong provides a sanctuary for a rich array of threatened wildlife, including Critically Endangered species like the Sunda Pangolin, Red-shanked Douc Langur, and one of the world’s rarest large mammals: the Saola, or “Asian unicorn”.
Dan Bradbury, director of communications and development, World Land Trust, says, “WLT works with a network of local partners around the world – currently in 20 countries – to save, protect and restore critically threatened habitat for wildlife, and in doing so, lock up carbon and address climate change. WLT has been saving land to save species for more than 30 years, and today our work to protect existing tropical forest habitat is more urgent than ever to save what remains of these vital ecosystems for wildlife. We couldn’t do any of it without the help of our amazing supporters, and we thank UK Greetings for their commitment.”
Saturday’s World Environment Day (June 5), will see the launch of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, for the benefit of people and nature. And in November, the UK will host the 26th annual Conference of the Parties to the Convention, or COP26, in Glasgow. An event which seeks agreement among world leaders to tackle climate, but also acts as a focal point for brands and businesses to emphasize and energize their own net-zero and carbon neutrality commitments.
Sir David Attenborough, COP26’s People’s Advocate and Patron of World Land Trust, says of the charity, “The money that is given to the World Land Trust, in my estimation, has more effect on the wild world than almost anything I can think of.”
Since its launch, over 3,000 brands and organisations have taken positive action by choosing Carbon Balanced Paper (in partnership with World Land Trust), helping to balance over 200,000 tonnes of CO2e. Among these is greeting card printer Windles, which forged an alliance with World Land Trust at the start of last year offering it on several boards from Antalis. (https://www.pgbuzz.net/windles/)
More details are featured on UKG’s website.
Top: The work of the World Land Trust helps to safeguard our planet.
