APPLETON, Wis. (WFRV)- A local business in Appleton is committed to being a leader in its industry in sustainable business practices. NEW Leaf Paper in Appleton has been in operation since 1998 and was purchased by a group based in Appleton around five years ago.
The company began buy selling paper to educational book publishers and then about two and a half years ago, launched a retail side, where they began offering journals, notebooks and of course, copy paper.
As a founding benefit corporation, NEW Leaf Paper puts the environment above all and is committed to sustainable business practices. Chief Executive Officer of NEW Leaf Paper, Paul Bradshaw, explains how his company is embarking on that mission:
“So sustainability being our primary mission, everything we do we build products that are made from 100 percent recycled fiber and that mission is intended to take waste out of the waste stream and protect our forests.”, says Bradshaw.
While the company is based in the Fox Valley, it also has it’s manufactures located in De Pere, Wisconsin, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, priding itself on keeping all products made in the USA.
Bradshaw says Sustana in De Pere is the company in charge of making a majority of the recycled fiber that are used to create the products. The process includes collecting the fiber, re-pulping and finally de-inking and then turning it into the products made at the other manufacturers.
Bradshaw explains how this process benefits the environment:
“Using recycled paper requires less energy. So less greenhouse gasses needed in order to manufacture the products to begin with, the process of reusing recycled fiber uses less water in the process and less energy; it’s less energy intensive. The fact that we don’t have to go out and harvest trees and bring them in and then pulp those trees and use a lot of energy to create our products results in a lot of energy savings and waste reduction.”
Paul Bradshaw
As a for profit company, on top of keeping the environment in mind, the company also gives back a portion of the profits back to the communities in which they operate in as one of its stakeholders.
Bradshaw says for every order they get, the company works with ‘One Tree Planted’ to plant a tree into the community. To find out more about NEW Leaf Paper, head over to their website.
