An investigation into eco-friendly office supplies : pencils and mechanical

The goal of the Eco-Friendly Office Supplies SEEDS project was to investigate manufacturer’s claims of “eco-friendliness” and perform a Triple Bottom Line analysis on a handful of products to determine whether purchasing the eco-friendly alternatives was worthwhile. The scope of our team’s project was limited to pencils, and we chose to explore this by comparing 5 different brands of pencil, representing 4 different types of pencil: wooden, ecofriendly wooden, mechanical, and eco-friendly mechanical. By looking at environmental, social, and economic metrics, and assigning each pencil a numerical value for each metric, we were able to come up with an objective score for each pencil. In the end, we came to the conclusion that the Staedtler Wopex, a German-manufactured eco-friendly wooden pencil, was a good eco-friendly alternative and the best overall pencil, while the ForestChoice, another type of eco-friendly pencil, did not live up to its eco-friendly claims. In the mechanical pencil category, the eco-friendly claims of the Zebra Eco Jimnie were difficult to verify, but did not offset its severely increased price point regardless of that fact. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”Applied Science, Faculty ofUnreviewedUndergraduat