The report said "little effort" was being made by companies to secure environmental accreditations, with just 24% of the UK's top 200 printing firms registered to ISO14001, the environmental management standard for recycling and waste disposal methods.
Additionally, only 14% of the printing companies polled had a certificate from Forest Stewardship Council, the international forestry NGO, to endorse their environmental practices. Fewer than 5% of the companies have been independently audited as carbon neutral.
GI Direct said the direct marketing industry was making itself an "easy target" for lobbyists and MPs about its environmental practices, and that more action was needed from trade bodies to "provide an effective counterpoint to environmental critics".
Patrick Headley, sales director of GI Direct, said: "There evidently needs to be an urgent and serious effort by the print industry to obtain a level of accreditation that clearly demonstrates through credible and independent audit the true environmental compliance of the sector."
The study follows a spate of recent criticism about the direct marketing industry's approach to environmental standards. David Milliband, secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, has lambasted the industry's 555,000 annual tonnes of mail as "unacceptable for consumer's convenience and the environment".
The GI Direct study polled 200 printing companies in the UK, and measured their performance on the three most relevant industry standards; awarded by ISO14001, the Carbon Trust and the Forest Stewardship Council.