Screwfix has slashed the print run for its well known product catalogue, claiming the move will save 74,000 trees. Screwfix joins a long line of retailers that have moved away from print towards online search and purchase. A few others, including Ikea and Argos, have also ditched their headline catalogues in recent years, claiming environmental benefits from using less paper, but without calculating the impact of increased online and screen based activity.
The catalogue is still printed, but customers have to ask for the 1000+pp A5 publication which is kept below the counter, rather than picking one up from dump bins in store.
The step, which does not seem to be part of wider moves for Kingfisher plc, owner of Screwfix, to cut carbon emissions, has provoked extensive online comment, mostly that Screwfix does not understand that the paper used is from an expanding renewable resource.
The move has dismayed some loyal Screwfix customers. On an online forum, one wrote: “When I asked why they told me that most of the business is online and by not printing, it saves the planet. The website is only OK providing you know exactly what you want and your description fits the wording within the site’s search engine. I have always browsed the catalogue to find things. Try reading a PDF catalogue on an iPhone. I have just attempted to download the digital catalogue and it didn’t work.”
“It is,” says Jonathan Tame, managing director of Two Sides, “a prime example of greenwash.”
The claim has appeared in Screwfix outlets where dump bins for the 1,000pp catalogues have disappeared. The catalogue that customers flick through to find and order products remains but its pages are no longer encapsulated in clear plastic to provide longevity. Eliminating the plastic is the “equivalent of 2 million plastic bottles” Screwfix says. There is no reference material to support either claim.
In a letter to Screwfix head office, Tame points out that without substantiation, the claim of saving trees is not based on fact and falls foul of the new CMA Green Claims Code. Two Sides has requested a meeting to explain the facts and help Screwfix avoid making misleading or unsupported claims.
A printed version of the catalogue remains available on request says Screwfix. Each store instead distributes a 16pp A5 leaflet which will be published monthly to highlight the latest special offers. Each outlet also continues to display the paper slips that are used to order products and there are flyers promoting the use of the Screwfix app, urging customers to sign up. The app is intended to replace the printed catalogue.
However, the company stands accused of greenwash, the use of spurious environment claims to hide the real reason for a decision. This is because paper is a renewable harvested resource, which thanks to chain of custody certification, is uniquely sustainable. And Screwfix claims that it will be sourcing 100% of its timber and paper products from responsible sources by 2022.
The company is a major retailer of timber products which come from the same FSC and PEFC certified forests as paper. The construction timber is derived from the main trunks, paper pulp from offshoots that can be waste from the sawmills. A link from the catalogue to an environment page no longer works.
Elsewhere on its website, Screwfix acknowledges that paper is not coming from rain forests, and says: “From the big items like sheds and doors to smaller ones like hammers and paint brushes, we make sure the timber is sustainably sourced and certified by either FSC or PEFC. Seventy-five percent of all our products containing timber or paper are sustainably sourced and certified by FSC or PEFC. We are working towards certification with our paper products such as sandpaper and masking tape to achieve 100% compliance next year. In addition, the paper we use within the business such as printing paper, for catalogues and publications, is also sustainably sourced.”
The company does not specify how many catalogues it has printed in the past, nor how many it is now printing. The only solace is that the main catalogue is printed gravure on PEFC certified SC papers, the 16pp replacement is a web offset printed product on a higher grade paper.
The catalogue is been widely used by the UK’s tradespeople, appearing in every builder’s, decorator’s or plumbers’s van in the country.
Screwfix will be making savings by not printing as many copies of its catalogue, part of a trend towards a reduction in run lengths for print.
This is not mentioned in the Kingfisher plc Responsible Business Report which lays out its ESG policies. In the section on sustainability, the plc states that 100% of wood and timber across printed catalogues and the likes of Screwfix and B&Q, will be from responsible sources and that it will be Forest Positive by 2025 by supporting reforestation projects. All paper and board will be sustainably sourced by 2025, including the use of fibre instead of plastic for packaging.
But paper scarcely figures in terms of the company’s Scope 3 emissions, where it says 50% of the carbon footprint comes from sourcing and manufacturer of its products, with a focus on reducing the impacts from peat, cement, ceramics and plastics. This includes a switch to fibre rather than plastic in packaging. Its goals are to reduce plastic packaging use by 25% (by weight) by 2025; to have adopted at least 30% recycled content in plastic by 2022 and to remove PVC and expanded polystyrene. Blister packaging is being redesigned and a new cardboard-only pack for electrical fittings has been introduced at Screwfix. All vendor branded products will need to use certified sustainably sourced cardboard by the end of 2024.
