Environmental Products

Staples offers several thousand products with environmental features in store and online, including recycled products, paper products from certified responsibly managed forests, refillable and recycled writing instruments, ENERGY STAR® qualified office technology, natural "green" cleaning products, furniture that meets indoor air quality standards, and non–toxic art supplies.

Product Offerings

A large selection of products with environmental features can be found on the Staples EcoEasy® web site. We seek to continue to expand our assortment by developing or sourcing quality "green" products every day that incorporate more sustainable raw materials or are otherwise designed to reduce environmental impacts. Examples of products with environmental features currently offered for sale from Staples include:

• Several thousand paper products with post–consumer recycled content (find recycled content paper)
• Staples® brand remanufactured ink and toner cartridges and remanufactured carrtridges from other brands
• ENERGY STAR® certified energy–efficient office products
• Paper products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council to come from responsibly managed forests
• Furniture with post–consumer recycled content steel
• Binders and organizers containing post–consumer recycled content plastic
• Alternative "green" cleaning products.

Paper Products

Our efforts to reduce the environmental impacts of our paper sourcing are guided by our Environmental Paper Procurement Policy, established in November 2002 with the collaborative input of a diverse group of stakeholders. The overall goals established in this policy include:

• Reducing demand for virgin wood fiber
• Protecting forests of high conservation value
• Promoting well–managed forests

Staples is committed to taking a leadership role on initiatives around sustainable paper and annually reporting on our progress. Our achievements include the following:

• Continuing to increase the number and dollar volume of products we sell containing post–consumer recycled content to help support our goal of averaging 30% post–consumer content by weight across all paper products sold.
• Offering nine Staples brand® products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council.
• Committing to move the majority of paper products we offer to FSC–certified paper by the end of 2010, based upon availability of supply and market conditions
• Requiring vendors bidding to supply large–volume paper products (copy and print paper, notebook filler paper, etc.) to complete an environmental survey to help us select responsible paper suppliers.

Staples has been a member of the Paper Working Group, a group of major companies committed to conserving forests and increasing the availability of environmentally preferable paper products, since April of 2003. Organized and facilitated by the nonprofit organization Metafore, the PWG is developing methods for evaluating the environmental performance of paper suppliers to help guide sourcing decisions.

Staples is participating with Georgia–Pacific and the Forest Stewardship Council in an ongoing project to explore achieving certification for small landowners in the southeastern U.S. We are actively engaged with a diverse group of stakeholders in projects to protect high conservation value forests and encourage sustainable forestry in several other areas globally.

• Environmentally Preferable Products
• Recycling
• Energy & Climate
• Environmental Education
• Staples Soul Main

• Environmental Paper Procurement Policy (PDF)
• 2007 Staples Soul Report (PDF)

• Staples EcoEasy®
• Paper Working Group
• U.S. EPA ENERGY STAR® Program