Ten Stanford students staged a protest outside of East Palo Alto’s Office Depot store on Saturday afternoon, as part of a national grassroots attempt to encourage the office supply chain to be more environmentally friendly.

Enlarge
#gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/3164
Andrea Cox

Members of the Stanford Greens stand outside of the East Palo Alto Office Depot on Saturday to collect customer signatures and perform skits educating shoppers about Office Depot

“Office Depot wants to preserve its image to maximize profits, so if it believes the loss of profits from the public awareness exceeds the cost of implementing the changes, it will make the environmental improvements,” said junior Timothy Telleen-Lawton, president of the Stanford Greens, an environmental advocacy group.

Many believe that Office Depot should stop its practice of using paper harvested from endangered forests. Two non-profit organizations — ForestEthics and Dogwood Alliance — spearheaded “The Paper Campaign” in 1999 to encourage Staples and Office Depot to stop using paper products from endangered forests.

The Stanford Greens made “The Paper Campaign” its top priority this quarter and planned Saturday’s protest as a culmination of this quarter’s efforts.

“Our plan is to educate Stanford students, other consumers, and any other relevant parties, and let Office Depot know that we are doing so,” Teleen-Lawton said.

To that end, the Stanford Greens has gotten about 1,000 people to sign postcards in support of the national campaign. Additionally, between 10 and 20 Stanford students also called Bruce Nelson, the CEO of Office Depot, on Friday as part of Solid Waste and Recycling Awareness Day. These students identified themselves as Stanford students who were concerned with Office Depot’s environmental policies.

At the protest, the Stanford Greens spoke to 75 customers, 43 of which signed postcards, at the protest on Saturday. These postcards encourage Office Depot CEO Bruce Nelson to make changes in the company’s environmental practices.

Students at the protest also performed various skits in front of Office Depot, using an axe lent from the Drama Department to illustrate Office Depot’s policy of cutting down trees in endangered forests. The police soon asked the students not to “wield the axe,” however.

Tyler Elm, environmental director of Office Depot, defended the company’s practices.

“We’re working with our suppliers and the conservation science community to move these issues forward,’’ Elm told the San Jose Mercury News. “By all means, Office Depot supports the conservation and protection of endangered forests. However, the term `endangered forests’ is not scientific and is purposely misused. ‘’

Elm claimed that non-profit organizations such as ForestEthics and Dogwood Alliance use college students to help them fight their battles, because college students are eager to better the world but often lack a concrete understanding of the issues.

“Students are a prime target because students want to further these issues but generally don’t have a grasp of the science behind these issues,” he said.

Office Depot claims that it is committed to “developing the most comprehensive environmental program in the office products industry.”

The Stanford Greens, however, are not convinced, and plan to continue to pursue this issue.

“We will continue to raise awareness,” Telleen-Lawton said. “We have not decided how we will do this, or what priority it will be among the other issues relevant to our campus group. If it remains a top priority in future quarters, then we will probably have more events to reach out to students, have professors in addition to students sign on to support the campaign and plan more off-campus publicity events.