Justin Basini, vice-president and head of brand marketing at Capital One Europe, unveiled the initiative at Marketing Direct's Profiting from Green Policies conference in London last month.
He also urged the DM industry to clean up its act and improve its impact on the environment, or risk being legislated against and facing a heightened consumer backlash.
Basini said the risk of inaction on environmental issues was "bigger than the risk of change". "We are a vibrant part of the marketing industry but we need to consider how we will secure our future. We need to reorient ourselves away from threat and fear and move on to sustainability. Taking action against junk mail is clearly a vote winner."
The financial services provider will use recycle logos on all its printed materials by March 2008, which will enable it to monitor the recycling habits among its consumer base. It is also aiming to use 100 per cent recycled paper on its internal and external communications in the same time frame.
Basini said: "We will use electronic channels to reduce our impact on the environment. We have used the internet previously for acquisition, but we will extend this channel to customer service. Direct mail still has an important role to play but we are exploring new pull models for the medium."
He added that Capital One's new marketing policy has been "uniformly well-received" and that response rates had increased.
Basini urged the industry to adopt leadership values based on responsibility, accountability and excellence, in order to develop an environmentally-friendly approach to DM.
- See Special Report, enclosed.
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