Sustainability

We try to be eco-responsible,
so why do we mail paper catalogs?

Well, in less paper than a pizza box and much less than the Sunday news, consumers can learn about great equipment and tips to help them enjoy cycling and the outdoors.

Catalyst sends just a few mail pieces per year per company to help locally-owned, small business people to thrive. Specifically, Catalyst promotes businesses that are dedicated to encouraging and developing healthy lifestyles through cycling and the outdoors.

At Catalyst, sustainability is an extremely important goal, not just a politically correct choice. We are keenly aware that as humans who consume, sustainability is something just out of reach, but we'll keep improving our sustainable practices.

It's a simple equation. Direct mail works. These businesses use Catalyst mailings a few times a year, because they are the most effective ways to communicate with their customers.

Six ways Catalyst minimizes the impact of producing catalogs:

1. Make them valuable. We design our informative tips and careful product explanations to make the catalogs useful enough that customers will keep them and look at them several times, season-long, and we include coupons with different redemption periods to give customers an incentive to refer to the Guides for months.
2. Mail as few as possible. We make it our business to analyze and target mailings to reach customers who will be most interested in cycling and outdoor products and most likely to buy from local cycling and outdoor retailers. Then, we "clean" our mail lists carefully to avoid duplicate mailings and update addresses.
3. Use paper that includes post-consumer waste. We shop our paper to reduce the use of new pulp and to help support the market for recycled paper.
4. Produce our products to FSC standards to ensure the paper comes from renewable, responsibly managed forests. The Forest Stewardship Council accreditation is the highest standard we know of for responsibility in using forest products. Learn more at www.fscus.org.
5. Produce our catalogs at the same time for locally-owned cycling and outdoor stores throughout the country. This requires extensive coordination but saves paper, ink, set-up charges, electricity and related printing resources.
6. Our catalogs always encourage consumers to re-use and recycle. We include helpful tips in the Guide copy on "green practices" and sustainable habits. And, we remind consumers to recycle the Guide or pass it along to a friend. Most recently, we included the following information in the Guides: "If you don't want to receive this catalog in the future, please call us and we'll remove you from our list. If you don't want other catalogs, go to www.CatalogChoice.com."

At Catalyst, sustainability is in our DNA and is part of our daily lives. Each Catalyst employee gets an EcoPass, which gives employees free access to the public bus system. And, any employee who uses alternate modes in traveling to and from work more than half the trips in a month receives a gift card to use at any business in downtown Boulder. Almost all of our employees get the gift card month after month. Catalyst has been honored time and again as a leading commuter company in Boulder's Bike to Work Day.

And, our employees have become leaders in local, state and national efforts to promote alternative transportation and sustainability. We keep striving....