14 March 2010

PAS2020 Direct Marketing: Environmental Performance

PAS2020:2009 Direct Marketing – Environmental Performance is the latest Publicly Available Specification to be launched by the British Standards Institute (BSI) on Friday 19th March 2010.

This specification aims to improve the sustainability of Direct Marketing campaigns and allows the independent assessment and certification of the campaigns.

Every year an estimated 4.3 billion items of direct mail are sent out using approximately 550,000 tonnes of paper. In 2003 it was estimated that 87% of these items ended up in landfill and contributed to 2% of the UK's waste mountain. To address this issue the Direct Marketing Association and the Government department Defra set out 10-year targets for waste reduction from the direct marketing sector. The target of recycling 30% of all waste direct mail by 2005 was only narrowly missed and the target rose to 55% by the end of 2009 with a target of 70% to be achieved by the end of 2013.

PAS2020 was developed by the BSI through consultation with the BPIF and other bodies to help the industry respond to these environmental pressures and achieve the Government targets.

The focus of the specification is to establish a set of environmental objectives, performance levels and indicators for different environmental aspects of a direct marketing campaign. These indicators then provide an indirect measure of a direct marketing campaign's environmental impact.

The PAS sets out the requirements to both the organisations with overall responsibility and importantly also to the suppliers of the activities relating to the campaign including printers and mail houses.

There are 10 aspects of the PAS 2020 criteria including;
Recyclability - Direct Marketing (DM) material must be designed for recyclability
Paper products - The procurement and use of paper must be effectively managed to improve environmental performance.
Inks and Finishes - Make efficient use of inks and finishes
Printing - Use organisations that manage the environmental impacts of producing printed DM communication.
Mailing Houses - Use mailing houses that manage the environmental impacts of distributing DM communications.

As PAS2020 is a Publicly Available Specification companies can self-declare compliance however independent certification may be a requirement of many campaign organisers so it is worth considering how certification could affect your tender responses.

Audits for printers (as a supplier of one or more activities of a DM campaign) will include a single assessment of the requirements of PAS2020:2009 and assuming no major issues are raised then certification and a certificate of registration to PAS 2020 Direct Marketing will be issued following an internal independent review and approval process.

Following this a programme of continuing assessment visits (typically two a year) would be undertaken by the assessment body to ensure that the campaign management system continues to be implemented and is effective in meeting the PAS requirements.

A Pre-Certification Audit lasting around one day will also be available with the objective of ascertaining progress in making, defining and implementing the campaign management system and ensuring there are no obvious omissions before the initial assessment takes place.

The benefits of complying with the PAS2020:2009 scheme include:
- Greater consistency and improvement in ways of working
- Improved operational efficiency
- Improved environmental performance of campaigns
- Improved campaigns through better planning
- Better preparation for legislation through improving the environmental performance of DM campaigns
- Protection and improvement of reputation of DM through better targeting

The benefits of certification to the PAS2020:2009 scheme may include:
- Independent assurance of compliance
- Added integrity to any claims of compliance made
- Differentiator leading to competitive advantage
- Makes responding to tenders easier
- Improved reputation
- Fresh set of eyes on your systems
- Sharing best practice
- Added focus on continual improvement