The Environmental Impacts of Paper Business Cards

The Environmental Impacts of Paper Business Cards

The use of paper business cards has been around for centuries. But the consequences of this practice have largely gone unnoticed until now. As such tiny and innocent bits of paper, it’s easy to regard them as customary tools that exchange information and overlook their environmental impacts. If you start thinking about the devastating effects of deforestation and natural habitat destruction, you’ll begin to get the picture. 

Luckily, you can easily ditch paper business cards and embrace a sustainable alternative that has more positive environmental and social impacts. It’s built for the mobile-age consumer and makes for a great conversation opener. Best of all, it’s proven to be much cheaper than printing tons of paper business cards. 

 

The Consequences of Paper Production

 

Paper production is one of the most polluting and resource-intensive industries on the planet. Its emissions have devastating consequences to the atmosphere and natural water bodies like beaches. Additionally, paper makes up 50% of landfill waste, 33% municipal waste, and 25% landfill waste worldwide. In particular, the methane gas produced from paper decomposition in landfills is 20 times more harmful than CO2.  

Paper business cards themselves are produced from processed wood. Around 100 billion are made every year, with about 27 million daily, while 90% end up in the bin. Some get recycled, but most end up in landfills. This has profound effects on climate change since 50% of all terrestrial carbon is stored in trees. 

Unfortunately, older trees are more preferred than newer ones when producing paper, which have significantly higher carbon levels. Added on top of this is the energy consumption and transportation that are required for the production process. 

The amount of water involved in paper production is concerning, too. 11,000 ounces of water are needed to produce 1,000 business cards, while a child needs 170 ounces of water a day. If we reduced the number of paper business cards, imagine the amount of water that could be used for better purposes. 

All of this proves that we are destroying our future in the name of business cards. The disposal of so many of them is not only harmful to the environment but also chews up our time because they require us to input contact details into our devices manually. Given the fast-paced nature of the modern world, most of us don’t have time for such mundane tasks. And since paper business cards are so ordinary, they can make it harder to leave lasting impressions.

 

The Qwerty Card as a Solution:

 

As the world advances, paper business cards have lost ground to more innovative solutions like the Qwerty Card. It is rapidly growing in popularity and solves many problems caused by paper business cards. 

The Qwerty Card makes use of NFC (Near-Field Communication) technology to transfer personal information between users, eliminating the need to input details manually. This is done through a simple tap between 2 NFC enabled objects. 

You can share more than your contact details, too, so it’s more than a business card. And by using one card instead of thousands of paper cards, it’s better for the environment. 

 

Re-inventing the way human connect for a more sustainable future

 

Here are some benefits that the Qwerty Card has over paper business cards:

 

  • Carry one card instead of plenty of paper cards, so you create more space in your draw or wallet. 
  • Share your social media profiles, websites, images and videos in addition to basic contact details.
  • Remove the need to input everything since information is shared digitally manually. 
  • Edit your card profile through a dashboard, create multiple profiles under one card and switch between them at any time. 
  • Create a custom card design to add uniqueness.
  • Generate actual leads when you share contact details with others.
  • Reduce costs by eliminating the need to print paper.
  • Leave a lasting impression through one tap and truly stand out. 
 

If you’re concerned about the environment and want to make yourself more unique, then try using a Qwerty Card today. 7.2 million trees are sacrificed for paper business cards each year, so making the switch will help reduce this figure.