Online consumer catalogue portal, CatalogueCentral.com.au has responded to Australia’s concerns about the environment by unveiling their E-Mission program. The first stage is a member invitation program that will see 20,000 new trees planted in Australia in the coming months.
An estimated eight billion catalogues are distributed annually to mailboxes across Australia. This is a staggering 40kg of paper catalogues per Australian household.
Catalogue Central is responding to general community concerns about global warming, unnecessary wastage and resource usage. Not many people realise it can take around 3.4 litres of water to produce a 24-page paper catalogue. To reach Australia’s six million households as much as 21,000,000 litres of water could be used.
“We want to get the message out about our environmentally-friendly service and we are prepared to invest directly in our environment to do so,” says CEO Robert Wong. “We are committed to making a big difference with member support. “
Catalogue Central offers the Australian consumer a choice: people can access traditional catalogue information online when they want, a single online destination for all major retailers. It is as simple to use as a traditional catalogue–each page presents and flip, just like its paper counterparts.
Catalogue Central is Australia’s leading online catalogue portal and was rated Australia’s fastest growing website in August 2006 by online intelligence agency, Hitwise.
“Print catalogues certainly play an important role in helping consumers to make purchasing decisions, but it’s a reality that the community is concerned about how much of our natural resources are sacrificed in the process. A reflection of this concern is the constant growth in Catalogue Central memberships, which is currently growing at 10,000 new registrations per month,” says Wong.
For each new Catalogue Central member who invites a new member to join, one tree will be planted by Elementree–a Western Australian-based organisation that offsets greenhouse emissions by the planting of trees. Working off the 1000 stems that Elementree can plant per hectare, 20,000 new trees will achieve the removal of 5000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.
“Our members are saying they want to have a choice and play an active role in encouraging more efficient use of resources in the community,” says Wong.
“We recognise that consumers are increasingly demanding corporate social responsibility from their preferred brands. Our consumers are proactively addressing their concerns about paper wastage and global warming generally. Our E-Mission program encourages ‘green’ catalogue consumption choices and has a positive environmental impact of over 20,000 new trees.”