Our Environmental Position

Environmental Policy Statement

It is Esselte Corporation’s policy to operate its business as a corporate citizen focused on sound environmental management and with concern for the well-being of our common environment. Our goal is to ensure that our operations are conducted in compliance with federal, state and local environmental standards. Esselte’s commitment to these goals and policies includes three primary approaches.

Practice Lean.
In 2003, we implemented our Lean Strategy, by which we continuously seek to eliminate waste in all steps or processes of our business that do not add value to our customers. We believe this enables Esselte to grow our business in an environmentally responsible and sustainable way. We strive to deliver sustainable improvements that are measurable, and we track our progress on a regular basis. Lean principles and methods have helped us to reduce the energy we consume, the water we use, the space we need for manufacturing and distribution, the inventory we carry, the demand for raw materials we buy and the scrap and rework we process.

Produce Eco-Friendly Products.
Our goal is to create high quality products that are designed to be reusable rather than disposable. Products that can be re-used offer the potential to consumers to eliminate waste and reduce the number of products that end up as trash in landfill. Esselte offers a Lifetime Guarantee on selected Pendaflex® branded products because we are confident in their ability to hold up to repeated, long-term use.

In addition, Esselte is committed to keep pace or exceed government post-consumer material content standards in our EarthWise® line of products by developing and offering innovative eco-friendly products. We have been selling a complete line of recycled filing supplies under the EarthWise® brand name since 1989. Additionally, the manila, pressboard and paper stock used in our Pendaflex® and Oxford® brands has a range of up to 100% post consumer material paper fiber content.

Practice Responsible Material Sourcing.
We strive to practice responsible material sourcing through supply chain collaboration and by continuously obtaining more materials from sustainable sources. We regularly seek to increase the percentage of recycled materials we offer to our customers.

Esselte Corporation is SFI certified in our North American manufacturing facilities where we make paper products for filing, presentation and index cards. This certification confirms that in North America, Esselte has met the supply chain standards set by the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI). SFI is an independent, multi-disciplinary board that promotes forest sustainability from environmental, economic, social, labor and academic perspectives.

The paper suppliers that we source from in the U.S. practice sustainable forestry and are either SFI or Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) approved. This insures that all the paper we source from them is third-party audited under ISO 14001 and comes from tree farms that are continuously being replenished. We intend to work with our paper suppliers outside the U.S. to strive to insure that our foreign-sourced paper meets similar standards.

10/29/09