As businesses everywhere compete more than ever for tight business dollars they also face a green competition of a different kind: finding and offering an environmentally superior solution for businesses. 

Office Depot is taking several actions to earn green dollars from customers, most uniquely, an all green catalog of office supplies. Greening a business’ office supplies is one of the most economically achievable as well as one of the most convenient methods of reducing a company’s environmental footprint.

For example, it takes little time in comparison to say, researching, financing and installing solar panels, to shop around in a catalog, the Green Book, for recycled content paper and file folders, refillable ink pens, or an energy efficient printer. These items and the others within Office Depot’s catalog, are much more affordable for a businesses as well as opposed to a solar panel installation. While not only admirable and a huge cost savings and potentially income generating method of going green, solar panels are not as quickly achievable as order some supplies.

Knowing this, Office Depot is capitalizing on the ease, affordability and convenience of smaller green measures. A particular business sector market Office Depot is targeting is Europe. European businesses are asking for a green catalog, one they can trust meets their needs with even less time required on their end to shop around. Jackie Thompson, an environmental manager for the United Kingdom and Ireland division notes, "It makes good business sense to know your customers and respond to their needs…[t]he UK market in general has become extremely focused on the environment, and so Office Depot UK has developed a proactive approach to responding to the increasing needs of our customers here."

The catalog is part of a larger effort to sell the store’s own green brand and continue to market green products sold in their stores. In addition to the typical supplies, stores will sell non-toxic cleaning products and compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) among other products. Office Depot is also making it easy to find their green brand online through visiting their web site at www.officedepot.com/buygreen.

Again, convenience reinforces the ease with which businesses will purchase green products without having to spend time and energy searching. Other environmental efforts include installation of a new store in Austin, Texas that is powered using solar energy, setting up the Forest and Biodiversity Conservation Alliance to protect forests, reducing carbon emissions by 10 percent in 2006, using florescent lighting throughout stores, and using a low emissions fleet for delivery vehicles.