Is It Easy Being Green?

“IT’S NOT that easy being green,” sang Kermit the Frog in “The Sesame Street Book and Record.” But more than 35 years after Kermit’s song debuted, it’s not only easier to be “green,” it’s actually cool to make green choices and acquire green products.

A broader environmental awareness from corporations and consumers has pushed advancements in green technology despite the significant investment, research and innovation required to develop green products. Companies are sourcing paper from suppliers dedicated to sustainable forest management and offering multipurpose papers with up to 100 percent post-consumer recycled content.

One of these companies is Xerox, which happens to be one of the largest distributors of cut-sheet paper. The company recently launched a mechanical fiber paper engineered for digital printing. Its High Yield Business Paper is made using a mechanical pulping process, a “greener” process than is used for standard digital paper. This paper uses 90 percent of the tree versus only 45 percent used to make traditional digital printing paper. The process also requires less water, fewer chemicals and is produced in a plant using hydroelectricity to partially power the pulping process, reducing fossil fuel consumption and resulting in up to a 75 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

The paper has 10 percent more sheets per pound yet performs like traditional 50-lb. text made by a chemical pulping process. Developed by scientists and engineers at the Xerox Media and Compatibles Technology Center, the mechanical fiber paper overcomes operational problems such as curling and dust, which until now prevented mechanical fiber papers from being used in digital print engines.

High Yield Business Paper can be used to produce transactional documents, manuals, catalogs and brochures, as well as preprinted offset shells for transactional documents such as invoices, statements and direct mail pieces. The lighter weight of the paper reduces shipping costs, making it ideal for such uses.

Despite the corporate green wave, many printed pages are quickly discarded. Xerox estimates that two out of every five pages printed in the office are printed for a single viewing (e.g. e-mails, Web pages and reference materials).

Scientists at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada and the Palo Alto Research Center have invented a way to make prints whose images last only a day, so the paper can be used again and again. While still an experimental technology, this “erasable paper” could someday replace printed pages used for just a brief time before being discarded and ultimately lead to a significant reduction in paper use.

Printing With Light

To create erasable paper, Xerox scientists developed compounds that change color when they absorb a certain wavelength of light but then will gradually disappear. In its present version, the paper requires a special printer that creates the image using a light bar that provides a specific wavelength of light as a writing source. The written image self-erases in 16-24 hours or can be immediately erased by exposing it to heat. Once the image is gone the paper can be reused multiple times.

Temporary documents are part of Xerox’s ongoing investments in sustainable innovations that deliver measurable benefits to the environment. In the words of Kermit the Frog, “I am green and it’ll do fine, it’s beautiful! And I think it’s what I want to be.”IPG

Maggie Ochs manages Worldwide Paper and Media Planning and Marketing Strategy in the Xerox Supplies Business Group. She joined Xerox in 1980 and has held a variety of management positions, including vice president, Xerox Office Group Product Introduction and Planning. A Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Ms. Ochs was born in Rochester, N.Y., and earned a Bachelors Degree from Georgetown University and advanced degrees from the University of Rochester, including her MBA with honors in Marketing. You may contact her at:

Maggie.Ochs@Xerox.com