Adding to the numerous and diverse lists of green best practices, Pitney Bowes Inc. has put out a white paper focused on cutting waste and energy for mailings. As with many other resource- and energy-savings initiatives, investing time and money to make changes in mailings has the potential to lower costs and turn a profit.

"The Truth About Green" was spawned from a DM News/Pitney Bowes survey that found a majority of respondents think more than half of all municipal waste is mail (the actual figure is around 2 percent), prefer companies that don't send unwanted mail or mail without relevant information, and think more highly of companies that use recycled paper and other green practices.

The paper lays out several steps to reduce mail waste. The biggest is making sure not to send undeliverable mail, a goal achieved though rigorous data management. Besides ensuring each mailing gets to a consumer and isn't wasted money, ensuring address are accurate also helps the U.S. Postal Service, which spends $1.9 billion a year dealing with undeliverable mail.

Pitney Bowes also suggests sending only mailings that customers will find useful or will be likely to respond do, and combining multiple mailings into one. As for materials, the mailroom equipment company recommends using lighter paper with high post-consumer recycled content.

The white paper also gives advice for overall greening, pointing out the possibilities in a top-to-bottom operations assessment, including reducing the environmental impact from delivery trucks, ink, employee activities and printing.