Axing the rainforest for stationery?

Top Model, Horses Dreams, and Let’s Party are the names of just a few of the stationery products that Depesche sells in the UK, Ireland and around forty other countries. The company's dirty secret: repeated analyses have shown that its paper contains fiber from old-growth rainforest trees. Tell Depesche to clean up its act!

Call to action

“Top Model” is the name of a popular stationery series for pre-teen girls – its artwork features slim, doe-eyed young women in fashionable clothing and hairstyles.  Its coloring books, spiral notebooks and other products can be found in supermarkets, toy stores and stationers in around forty countries. The ubiquity of Depesche’s products is bad news for the rainforest: analyses commissioned by WWF Germany detected fiber from tropical trees in Depesche’s paper for the second consecutive year. 

Depesche describes itself as Europe’s largest vendor of greeting cards and gift items. Its paper products are printed in China, and the paper mills are clearly not particularly choosy about the sources of their pulp: In Southeast Asia, giant pulp and paper companies like APP and APRIL plunder rainforests on a grand scale.

Depesche claims that the tests were performed on old stock, and that the tested products have since been discontinued. On its website, the company proclaims that it exceeds statutory requirements and that the quality of its products has been verified by an independent testing organization. Given the scope and consistency with which Depesche’s products have tested positive over the past two years, we do not consider the company’s response to be particularly plausible. 

Please sign our petition to Depesche calling on them to eliminate the rainforest from their supply chain.

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