Policy Commitment:
Avoiding the purchase and use of environmentally damaging materials

Environmental Management Programme Objective:
To Reduce The Use Of Paper

4.1 Introduction to the Issue
We use large amounts of paper, particularly for studio scripts, call centre briefs, confidential customer information, our BSkyB TV Guide, and customer marketing and billing.  Excessive use of paper results in unnecessary depletion of renewable natural resources i.e. trees as well as the environmental costs associated with the production of paper from a raw material.  In addition, there is an unnecessarily high disposal cost if the paper content of the domestic/office waste stream is not reduced or recycled.

4.2 Current BSkyB Status
All paper used for corporate headed stationery paper contains recycled paper.  This requirement has now been incorporated with our specification in our revised supplier contracts.  In addition, all paper suppliers have been asked to provide evidence of their own environmental commitments.

Double sided printers were introduced at Osterley in December 2001 and other sites will have this facility from January 2002. The majority of machines have been adapted to count duplexed copies separately.  A launch for this initiative, to raise staff awareness, is going to be rolled out over the next 6 months at the Osterley site.  Scotland will follow once new copier machines have been installed.

To date, some paper recycling has been undertaken at our Osterley site.  Following the appointment of a National Cleaning contractor, who now has responsibility for waste collection and recycling, we will be introducing a range of schemes across all locations.

4.3 Performance Data
The following cost information has been collated from monthly performance monitoring for each of the four sites.  This information relates to paper use from the four sites whose business contributes 90% of our total business.

Paper Use	Monthly Cost	Estimated Annual Cost
Laser, printer and copier paper	£12,987	£155,844
TV Guide	£570,000	£6,840,000
Printed stationery	£14,509	£123,043
Miscellaneous	£1,002	£11,909
Total	£598,498	£7,130,796

It is estimated that we use approximately 50 million sheets of paper per year.  This is the equivalent of approximately 6000 sheets for each full time employee.

The principal source of paper consumption (in terms of cost and paper tonnage) is the TV Guide.  During 2001, an average of 4.2m copies were printed monthly.  This is an area that has been recognised as providing the potential for improvement and actions are proposed.

Another large area of paper & energy consumption is the production of our customer statements and letters with approximately 38 million being printed.  Our customer statements are produced and supplied by K2.  K2 uses paper sourced from European & Scandinavian mills, all of whom are ISO14001 certified (the international standard for environmental management systems).  Pulp comes from sustainable forest sources and most is totally chlorine free.

4.4 Planned Actions to Improve

Action	Target Date
Collect paper procurement data and establish baseline performance for 2001 and use to inform the development of a improvement target.	2002/03
Identify key areas of high use (including studio scripts/schedules, TV Guide, printers and copiers, email) and opportunities for measuring and reducing the amount of paper used.  Identify barriers to reducing paper use, for example increasing available IT equipment.	2002/03
Look at ways in which BSkyB forms and other traditionally paper-based items can be translated into electronic form (for completion and submission purposes).	2002/03

4.5 Case Studies/Interesting Facts
An example of where we are investigating ways to reduce paper consumption relates to the large number of customer statements produced.  A project to assess the feasibility of E-billing is now underway.  Similarly an E-ordering system for stationery is now being used across the all our sites, and an E-expenses system has been launched. E-procurement and E-reporting systems are also being investigated.