A direct marketing industry led, voluntary environmental code, PAS 2020: Direct Marketing - Environmental performance - Specification establishes a set of environmental objectives, performance levels and indicators that set out how to create and manage an environmentally responsible direct marketing campaign.

The requirements within it are not just for printers, but cover all aspects of a campaign:

• Planning the campaign
• File suppression and data cleaning, informing recipients how to unsubscribe
• Materials used - environmental requirements for these include recyclability, as do design requirements
• Printing - including ink coverage and avoidance of laminates and UV varnishes, and printers' environmental management systems
• Distribution - mailing houses' and distributors' environmental management systems
• The use of 'call to recycle' action on all appropriate marketing materials, such as the Recycle Now logo, Waste Aware Scotland logo or Waste Awareness Wales logo.

Direct marketing methods that don't involve print are also included in the PAS, with requirements relevant to the activities involved.

There are three levels for users - introductory, intermediate and advanced - with increasingly challenging requirements. These are set for each relevant aspect of the campaign, and the overall score calculated from the level achieved within each - the intention being that users commit to continual improvement. Using the system means that businesses can measure their performance and refine best practice for all their direct marketing activities.

Development of the standard took 18 months and was independently facilitated by BSI British Standards. BSI carried out an extensive consultation process, engaging with key stakeholders from government, industry, trade associations and consumer groups. A one-month public consultation with several hundred organisations resulted in 1000 comments, all of which were reviewed by the PAS 2020 Steering Group, which was made up of 30 industry representatives.

A website, Green DM, has been developed by the Lateral Group to provide support for users of PAS 2020. It includes a calculator tool to automatically assess how thoroughly a campaign complies with the standard, and users will be able to build a database of campaigns that have been assessed, providing easy retrieval of documents for any audit process.