New research has suggested that businesses need to do more to promote the importance of recycling direct marketing to their audience.

The study found that only one in ten inserts placed in direct marketing messages included an environmental message or a recycled logo.

The Independent has looked into the new direct marketing environment standard PAS 2020, launched by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), which aims to make firms take a critical look at how they can reduce their environmental impact.

The standard was introduced so that the direct marketing companies can reduce their own contribution to the waste mountain, as well as building a positive reputation amongst cynical consumers.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) will be going to Manchester this week to launch the industry’s first ever environmental standard.

It will be showcasing the ‘PAS 2020: Direct Marketing Environment Performance Specification’ to the region’s business community and help them make the industry improve its image by moving towards more sustainable campaigns.

In January 2009, the DMA launched PAS 2020, the direct marketing industry’s first environmental standard of best practice. The standard will not only help the direct marketing industry meet its environmental obligations, but will also brace it for the impacts of forthcoming environmental legislation.

Robert Keitch, Director of Media Channel Development and Environmental Affairs at the Direct Marketing Association, looked at why the industry needs an environmental standard in the February Green Matters issue of the DMA.

DEFRA (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) has told Marketing Direct’s Green DM online conference that the new BSI green standard for direct marketing, PAS 2020, is critical for the industry to reach its 55 per cent recycling target this year.

Roy Hathaway, head of waste at DEFRA, told the conference that it’s up to the industry to prove it can succeed in achieving its next recycling target.