TD Bank Group has announced a commitment to become “paper neutral” within its North American operations by the end of 2012.
The bank says the paper neutrality goal is two-pronged: first, TD aims to cut its paper use by 20 percent by 2015. Second, it will introduce a forest conservation program to offset the paper it does use.
Over the next year, TD will expand and enhance its paperless banking options and other online services for customers, and will introduce initiatives to reduce the amount of paper used by employees. TD’s paper reduction target is equal to about 300 million sheets of typical office paper, the company says.
For the paper “offsets,” the bank will partner with the Nature Conservancy of Canada on a program to enlarge and protect areas of threatened forest habitat across the country. TD says the program will protect forest at a rate equivalent to more than one football field a day.
Last year TD announced it was participating in paper manufacturer Boise Inc.’s paper recycling program to divert paper waste from landfills. The Boise Closed Loop System guaranteed that at least 1,500 metric tons of paper from TD’s operations in Canada and the U.S. would be diverted from landfills and used in the production of recycled office paper, which the bank buys for use at its operations.
Also in 2010, TD announced that it was the first North America-based bank to go carbon neutral. It received a Green Power Partner Leadership Award from the EPA in recognition of its renewable energy credit purchases. The company has also set a target of reducing its carbon footprint by one ton per employee by 2015.
Earlier this year it opened what it called the first net-zero energy bank location in the U.S., in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
