April 9th, 2008 · No Comments

By John DeFore

Today business-supply giant Office Depot joined the ranks of big-box retailers using their weight to steer customers, however incrementally, in a greener direction. The retailer announced “Office Depot Green,” which judging from the company’s press release would put a useful twist on eco-friendly retailing by applying a uniform brand (as seen on this box of copier paper) to products ranging from recycled paper to energy-efficient light bulbs to non-toxic cleaning products.

That helpful uniformity isn’t yet apparent at the Buy green page of the retailer’s web presence, where even house-brand envelopes and notebooks are still showing up without the Green logo. Shoppers might assume this is due to existing stock that must be sold off before being restocked in the new form; the company’s own announcement describes the line partly in the future tense, as a line that “will grow to encompass a wide assortment of products.”

But in fact there seems to be some friction between the “Buy green” (lowercase “g”) page and the “Green” (uppercase “g”) product line. While Office Depot offers some paper products with post-consumer recycled content as high as 40% (interestingly, you can sort the site’s products by brand or price but not by factors like this), an FAQ admits it has substantially lower standards for Green. “The post-consumer recycled content cut-off (minimum) for recycled products in Green Depot is 10% post-consumer recycled content and/or 50% total recycled content,” according to the FAQ.

The rationale appears to be the belief that mainstream consumers want to ease their way into non-virgin paper and “Office Depot considers an incremental approach to be better in the long run than a purist approach because the market for greener office products is still relatively small.”

Aside from paper office products and light bulbs, Office Depot will count among its eco inventory: paper towels with recycled content, re-manufactured ink cartridges and chairs made of recycled material.

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