CHEP, the global leader in pallet and container pooling services, has made a second significant donation to the International Tree Foundation (ITF), as a result of many of its customers switching to receive electronic, rather than paper invoices.

In February 2007, CHEP launched an initiative in co-operation with the ITF, designed to reduce paper waste and increase the amount of trees planted across Europe. CHEP committed to make a donation to the organisation, for every customer who signed up to receive electronic invoice documentation. The ITF then uses the donations to protect and plant new trees across Europe. In September, CHEP donated €9,483 (£7,458) to ITF.

Since then 3,920 customers have converted to electronic documentation, and CHEP has committed to increase its donation to €2 per customer that switches over. As a result, CHEP has donated an additional €7,840.

CHEP’s e-invoicing process has already had a positive environmental impact, by reducing the quantity of paper documents by 81 per cent. Now CHEP aims to improve on this figure through the introduction of a digital signature later this year. This will remove the need for a paper invoice completely, making all invoices electronic and digitally signed as standard.

Peter Mackie, senior vice president of customer service at CHEP said: “We are delighted that so many of our customers have opted to receive electronic invoices and very pleased to make a second donation to the ITF. Protecting the environment is very important to CHEP, and we are hopeful that the introduction of the digital signature will provide an additional incentive for those remaining customers to switch from using paper.”

For companies that have elected to use the CHEP equipment pool, there is no longer the need to use disposable and single trip packaging and it is estimated that this eliminates more than six million tonnes of wood from being sent to landfill each year. Any damaged equipment is repaired, with nails being recycled and wooden pallet components that cannot be repaired are reused for fuel, chipboard, mulch and animal bedding.

Topics