My article on Triple Pundit on how Allstate reduced its paper use, saving both trees and money

Here's an update on a new article I published today on Triple Pundit on Allstate's achievement to cut its paper use internally by 41 percent and externally (customer focused reductions by eliminating unnecessary customer bill documents for example) by 12 percent, saving not just many trees but also a lot of money!

The article is entitled "Allstate Cutting Paper Use Drastically, Saving Both Trees and Money". Here's the first paragraph of the article: 

The insurance company Allstate uses a lot of paper – in 2009 it used approximately 3.7 billion sheets, equal to approximately 450,000 trees. So it’s not surprising that the company identified paper reduction as one of its top environmental priorities, setting a goal of reducing overall office paper use by 25 percent by 2010. In their latest CSR report, which was released earlier this week, Allstate is revealing that it actually did much better, reducing its office paper use last year by 41 percent.

To read the full article go to http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/09/allstate-cutting-paper-drastically-saving-both-trees-money/


Links to other articles I wrote for Triple Pundit can be found at http://www.triplepundit.com/author/raz-godelnik/

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!

Annual assessments of Eco-Libris' planting partners are available now online

photo from the Eco-Libris' planting areas in Panama, courtesy of SHI: Nursery of 2,000 trees including mahogany,cedro espino (Bombacopsis quinata), cedro amargo (Simarouba amara) and chime tree

This is our last post for 2010 and just like we did in 2008 and 2009, we dedicate it to announce that the annual assessments (2009-10) of our planting partners are now available online!

Here's a little bit more about these assessments: As part of our pledge to quality service to our customers, we decided at the beginning of our operations to conduct annual assessments of our planting partners.The two main goals of these assessments are: 1. to verify the quality of the planting operations and to make sure the high standards we promise to our customers are kept and 2. to provide our customers with details on the tree planting operations they support to balance out their books.

As always, the trees planted by our planting partners provide multiple significant benefits to both the local communities in the areas where they are planted and to the environment. This year we had an example of it in Guatemala in the tragic circumstances of the tropical storm Agatha that took place in May 2010, causing horrific flooding and mudslides (see photo below, credit: Ann Hallum) that killed at least 145 people, washed away crops and highways, and hundreds of homes. Particularly hard hit was the Department of Chimaltenango where AIR works. Dr. Ann Hallum, the Director of AIR, reports about the difference AIR's trees made then on AIR's assessment:

During the summer of flooding, 2010, I witnessed most dramatically the power of trees (especially pine trees, with their deep tap roots). Over and over again, we saw that where there were no trees, the mudslides occurred, and in areas right next to a slide with trees, the mountainside held together. More than once, we saw a young forest planted by AIR stop the mudslides that would have destroyed small houses below, and a stream. As the AIR technician said, “the trees stood against the mud like little soldiers.” We are planting more urgently than ever!

AIR tree nursery; Santa Apolonia; Rebecca Hallum, Anne Hallum, with Luis Iquique and the resident committee, June 2010 (photo: Ann Hallum)

This is the third year we're conducting these assessments. You are invited to read them (see links below) and also visit our planting partners' websites to learn more about them. Links to both the first year's and second year's assessments for each of our planting partners, as well as links to their websites, are available on our planting partners page.

Another example is Malawi, Africa where our partner RIPPLE Africa is working. Their video below shows the effects of deforestation and bush burning in Malawi and also illustrates the woodland conservation program that RIPPLE Africa has initiated there.

This video shows both sides of reality in Malawi - deforestation and frustration on one side and reforestation and hope on the other side, which we're proud to support.



Another video we would like to recommend is Planting Hope - The Story of Sustainable Harvest International (Video generously filmed & produced by Myriad Media) that provides a closer look at the great work our partner SHI is doing in Central America, including the planting of over 2.7 million trees in countries such Belize, Panama, Nicaragua and Honduras since 1997.




Here are links to the three reports:

AIR's assessment

RIPPLE Africa's assessment

SHI's assessment

We will keep you posted of course with more data, photos and videos from the planting operations! Thanks again to our planting partners and to everyone that was involved in the work on the assessments.

Happy New Year!
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

WWF is presenting a new unprintable PDF format to save trees

WWF came up with an interesting idea that will help us to save paper: An unprintable new PDF format, which is named after them -WWF.

Why we need a new PDF that can't be printed? They explain:

Every day, entire forests are cut down to make paper. Paper that’s senselessly used to print out documents all over the world: websites, emails, even entire books, in spite of the fact that it's easy to avoid printing by saving the document as a PDF. But even PDFs can sometimes also be printed out. So to stop unnecessary printing and encourage a new awareness about the use of paper, we’ve developed a new, green file format: WWF. A format that can’t be printed out. A simple idea that saves trees. Join in. Decide for yourself which of your documents don’t need printing - and save them as WWF.



You can download the new WWF format from their website, though at the moment it is only avilavle for Macs (it should be available to Windows soon).

I like this idea. We definitely print too many files than we really have to, and these sort of formats can make it easier on us to decide not to print, simply because we can't.. What do you think? Will you be using the WWF? We'll be happy to hear your thoughts about it.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

There’s no such as “normal” weather in Guatemala…but trees can help!

An AIR-planted pine forest, about 8 years old in Simajhuleu, Guatemala, stopping a mudslide from the road above and protecting a stream and houses below (June 2010; photo: A. Hallum)

Last June we updated you how trees planted by our planting partner AIR in Guatemala help to mitigate some damages of Hurricane Agatha.

AIR is doing an incredible job in Guatemala in general, but in such situations its work is even more substantial. This is also a demonstration of the value of trees planted by AIR and their significant impact on people's life.

Dr. Anne Hallum, the Director of AIR, who was in Guatemala at that time with a team of volunteers to plant trees as this was the planting season, sent us a brief report, which is enclosed below, on the event with pictures that help to get a better understanding what happened there.

There’s no such as “normal” weather in Guatemala…but trees can help!

The last day of May, 2010, tropical storm Agatha poured so much rain on south central Guatemala, it caused horrific flooding and mudslides that killed at least 145 people, washed away crops and highways, and hundreds of homes. Particularly hard hit was the Department of Chimaltenango where AIR works.

Some scientists speculate that climate change has changed the normal afternoon rains of the rainy season into intense “rain events.” It doesn’t help that decades of deforestation have worsened the mudslides, and that highway construction and gravel mining in the mountains takes down more trees, and safer engineering practices are not used.

In any case, the rains continued throughout the summer months (Guatemala’s “winter” months). In September “Tropical Depression 11-E” parked for days over the same area of Guatemala, and mudslides destroyed highways and one bus filled with persons was buried, killing at least 12 persons. One of AIR’s technicians was trapped on a road all night outside of Panajachel, with mudslides occurring around him.

What is to be done? First, AIR is responding with targeted emergency aid because the technicians are themselves Guatemalan and know the roads and villages very well. Secondly, volunteers have already been recruited to help rebuild homes—once it stops raining every day. Thirdly, the tree-planting efforts must intensify in these mountainous regions.

It was evident to everyone this summer, that where AIRES had reforested hillsides, the mudslides did not occur. In one village, a young pine forest that AIR had planted 8 years ago acted like brakes on a mudslide washing down a road and protected the stream and houses below. As the AIR technician said, “the little trees stood like soldiers” stopping the mud (photo).



AIR staff members & truck delivering food & water, in Santa Apolonia, 2 June 2010 (Photo: A. Hallum)

The benefits of trees seem innumerable – animal habitat, soil nutrition; shade; beauty; fertilizer; fruits, carbon sequestration—and this summer in Guatemala, they literally saved lives.

Josue, standing next to an AIR-planted forest in Simajhuleu, Guatemala; his family has worked with AIR for 10 years (Photo: A. Hallum)

AIR tree nursery; Santa Apolonia; Rebecca Hallum, Anne Hallum, with Luis Iquique and the resident committee, June 2010 (photo: A. Hallum)

For more information, and to donate for AIR’s emergency response, see www2.stetson.edu/air/

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Trees planted by our planting partner AIR in Guatemala help to mitigate some damages of Hurricane Agatha

Last month Central America was hit by Hurricane Agatha. The worst-hit country was Guatemala - the BBC reported, nearly 112,000 people have been evacuated from their homes across Guatemala and AP updated earlier this month that officials in Guatemala reported 152 dead (out of 179 in Central America).

One of our planting partners, AIR, is working in Guatemala and we got in touch with Dr. Anne Hallum, the Director of AIR, who is in Guatemala with a team of volunteers to plant trees as this is the planting season.

Dr. Hallum updated us that they have been driving around visiting villages where AIR works and saw the damages from the floods. Thankfully, they have also seen the miracles of the pine trees which AIR had planted, which acted like brakes on the mudslides. Still, though, tragedy struck one of the families with which AIR has worked for years when a mudslide destroyed a house and four members died, while one is hospitalized.

Dr. Hallum also reported that AIR's Board members have responded beautifully with donations for this emergency, and they're delivering another truckload of supplies next week.

AIR is doing such an important work in Guatemala and we're very grateful for that and proud to be their partners! We're also very proud to hear that the trees they plant with our support have such a significant impact on people's life. Dr. Hallum added that 'we just wish we could plant in the whole country!'. Well, we hope that it will happen sooner the later and we definitely hope that our work at Eco-Libris will contribute significantly to this effort!

Dr. Hallum sent us few photos from Guatemala I would like to share with you:

These are pictures of what is left of a bridge & fishing town along the Rio Monogua, in southern Chimaltenango.



Photo of a young pine forest planted by AIRES that stopped a mudslide from across the road




Little boy helping to clean up outside of De Vega Santa Apolonia, Department of Chimaltenango, two days after Hurricane Agatha on Saturday, May 29th.


AIR truck loaded with supplies we delivered to the Emergency center of the City of de Vega Santa Apolonia, three days after Hurricane

Mountains around Simajhuleu, Department of Chimaltenango, where AIR planted trees 8 years ago, which are growing strong.

To learn more about AIR please visit their website - www2.stetson.edu/air

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!