Competition for paper reduction ideas with a chance to win up to £1000

21st May 2014

The Doreen MacIntyre Prize - competition now open!

Doreen MacIntyre was an internationally-respected expert on forests and other environmental issues whose most recent project involved encouraging the UK’s biggest companies and public sector organisations to use paper more efficiently. To continue the spirit of her work, Reforesting Scotland with the support of the European Environmental Paper Network, is offering a prize for the smartest and most practical idea to stop wasteful paper use, and with the prize money we will help you to make your idea a reality.

Paper and cardboard are the single biggest element of our waste streams, yet paper is a highly valuable material. To make a tonne of paper requires tonnes of other resources – not only trees and land, but also water, chemicals and energy. A recent study concluded that globally our use and disposal of paper causes more climate change emissions than aviation. Reducing paper consumption can help us to shrink our environmental footprints – and it also saves us money.

Are you a school pupil with a great idea for how your school could use less paper? A student with a wizardly technological innovation for paper efficiency? An office worker with a brainwave about how to reduce paper waste in your workplace? Or anyone else with a great idea for how our society can save paper? Taking part in this competition is a win-win situation as you can identify ways to save money whether you win the prize or not!

Please email up to 500 words about your paper-saving idea to prize@environmentalpaper.eu by Sunday 31 August to give yourself the chance of winning the funds to put your idea into practice. Simply explain how paper is currently used in your organisation (and, if possible, estimate how much you use per year) and how your much idea would save. Please tell us who would be involved in your plan and how the prize money would help you achieve it.

The ideas will be judged for being innovative, practical, requiring a modest investment, testable in a real world environment, and likely to achieve measurable reductions in paper use. There are two prizes of £600 each – one for children and one for adults – plus a £400 bonus for the ‘best’ idea. The prize money must be spent on making the idea reality (see Rules below).

If you want to discuss things before committing effort to a project, contact Mandy Haggith on prize@environmentalpaper.eu.

We recently carried out some 'exchange' webinars with the project and you can view the recordings:

• Paper utility: the quickest way to paper efficiency (webinar) View Recording
• Paper efficiency in packaging (webinar) View Recording
• Paper vs Digital (webinar) View Recording