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Early in April the direct marketing industry received some excellent and most welcome news that it had exceeded the recycling target set by the government and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) for 2009 and is already ahead of the goal set for 2013.
• Last year 76.5% of direct marketing material was recycled, well ahead of the 2009 target of 55% and even beating the 2013 target of 70%
• The figures mean that the amount of direct mail entering landfill sites has fallen by 79% since 2003, saving 382,698 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2009 alone
The above figures are taken from the first ever Direct Marketing Material Prevention Report on industry performance (for the year 2009) – produced for DEFRA by Royal Mail and the DMA.
Just for clarification, the term ‘direct marketing material’ is used to refer to: addressed direct mail, unaddressed door drops and inserts in free posted newspapers.
ONEPOST fully support the many and varied environmental issues. We believe that a large proportion of the success in achieving such target busting figures is attributable to industry initiatives such as Responsible Mail which incorporate requirements for more highly targeted and cleansed mailing data. Regular kerbside collections have also made recycling much easier.
What initiatives have been introduced to aid the sustainability effort since 2003?
PAS2020: this was developed by the Direct Mail industry to help senders of mail to manage the environmental impact of their activities. Specifically PAS 2020 focuses on establishing a set of environmental objectives, performance levels and indicators for different environmental aspects of a Direct Marketing campaign.
Royal Mail launched two new sustainable products in 2009: ‘Sustainable Mail’ (available via RM Retail) and ‘Responsible Mail’ (available via RM Wholesale) achieve better prices for producing direct mailings that are better targeted, produced in a sustainable way and easy to recycle. These services are fully aligned to PAS 2020.
In addition, Royal Mail has introduced the Royal Mail Mailing House scheme which gives rewards to Mailing Houses which can provide evidence of environmental management systems.
The DMA has invested over £3m in the Mailing Preference Service (MPS) since 2003: this has resulted in a 211% increase in subscriptions which stood at 4,519,000 at the end of 2009. MPS covers addressed marketing material only.
Unaddressed direct marketing material: over 390,000 consumers have now opted out of receiving unaddressed direct marketing material from Royal Mail by signing up for the Door-2-Door opt out scheme – as of April 2009.
So, what happens next?
Keeping momentum going will be the key to ultimate success and it is vital that all stakeholders in the direct marketing industry continue their efforts to maintain and improve sustainable practices. In this regard it is encouraging that DEFRA and industry partners will soon begin meetings to develop a new voluntary agreement to ensure that direct marketers continue to make great strides towards a greener future.
Most industry commentators view ‘voluntary’ or ‘self regulation’ as the best way forward … a point we would like to emphasise: by exceeding these targets, our self-regulatory activity is clearly starting to pay off.
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