Frequently Asked Questions

PrintReleaf is a platform designed to enable an automated certified reforestation or certified carbon offsetting process for the print industry players through integration with our API or by manual data entry that inform calculation of the number of trees required to produce paper or the emissions resulting from manufacturing paper - based on the Paper Calculator™ by the Environmental Paper Network.

PrintReleaf platform provides RaaS – reforestation as a service – through our software platform that automatically directs customer monetary contributions to our reforestation partners. We work with credible environmental organizations – recognized authorities in reforestation project development which we independently certify through SGS International to the minimum requirements of the PrintReleaf Standard - and rely on their expertise to ensure that the appropriate species are planted in the areas of the world where they are needed.

Responsible sourcing of paper is important for the preservation of our planet’s forest resources and we fully support printing customers whose goals are centered on growing of recycled and chain-of-custody certified paper share of their portfolio. PrintReleaf is fully compatible with all leading schemes of certifications such as Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®), Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification™ (PEFC™), Sustainable Forestry Initiative ®(SFI®) Chain-of Custody (COC).

PrintReleaf helps reduce the environmental impact of customers’ paper consumption when certified or recycled paper is not available, or when their operations are unable to support chain-of-custody requirements. By the same token, PrintReleaf is instrumental for customers who want to go beyond certified and recycled paper by reforesting as prioritized by recognized forest experts.

PrintReleaf certified organizations are independently responsible for their marketing messaging. Subscribing to PrintReleaf enables customers to claim that they have planted trees, or contributed to reforestation, in amounts that are informed by the number of pages they have printed within certain time period. Our calculation is based on numbers provided by the Environmental Paper Network. We recommend that organizations interested in claiming neutrality conduct Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of their printed products by appropriately accredited organizations in order to determine the path to neutrality.

Per the PrintReleaf Standard we use the size of the tree species at maturity as published by i-Tree Database, Global Tree Search, Useful Tropical Plants Database, and other resources in combination with localized ground level intelligence provided by our certified reforestation partner organizations. We then normalize these trees to the average tree used in EPN’s calculations

Our calculation is based on numbers provided by the Environmental Paper Network. Because we are using exact numbers to measure weighted paper consumption, it sometime results in a fractional number of trees reforested for a customer’s consumption as represented on PrintReleaf Certificates of Reforestation. In practice at the ground level, PrintReleaf is planting whole natural trees into reforestation projects that aggregate all customers’ consumption to roll up to a whole number of trees contributed and planted for a large mass of customers into a single project.

PrintReleaf plants trees on an ongoing regular basis through all our roster of reforestation projects to establish an inventory of trees. We then transfer trees from inventory and assign them to customers by issuing certificates of reforestation through our system for measuring a customer’s monthly paper footprint (for MPS customers) or a customer’s print job (for commercial print customers). In parallel, we work with SGS International to independently verify the performance of our reforestation projects to ensure that trees are planted and survived per the terms of the PrintReleaf Standard.