A tree-hugging copy chain

It's paper with character, covered with puffy white clouds against a blue sky. The image is an environmentally friendly one. And it's also the last package on the shelf. The product sells well at Kinko's 3923 Walnut Street location near Penn's campus -- and appropriately so. Yesterday, at a ceremony at one of the chain's downtown locations, Mayor John Street recognized the business for its environmental efforts, declaring it to be the "cleanest-powered retail chain in the Philadelphia region." This honor follows the company's recent announcement that all their Pennsylvania stores will now run on "renewable energy," purchased from the Green Mountain Energy Company. But despite its recent accolade, the Walnut Street store may not seem like anything special. According to customers, it's pretty much a standard copy center, and it draws its clientele -- which includes many members of the Penn community --because of its convenient location, rather than its sound environmental record. "It wouldn't make me any more likely to go here," said College senior Adam Roseman, who was at Kinko's to make transparencies for his presentation on the chronobiology of sleep. He explained that he chose Kinko's simply because it was two steps closer than Campus Copy Center. Kinko's "is closer than the library," he added. "We have a pretty good combination of students, faculty and people from the community," copy consultant Craig Weller said, noting the diversity of the location's regulars. And the projects these customers undertake at Kinko's are varied as well. Mary Halliday, a 1989 graduate of the School of Social Work and a West Philadelphia resident, was at the store making visual aids for a black history play taking place in her adult Sunday School class at the Monumental Baptist Church. College senior Carla Macknet was at Kinko's to have a picture put on a T-shirt -- a picture of feet. "It's an inside joke," Macknet explained. Another student was requesting printed CD labels as a woman in a faux-fur coat sliced party invitations at the paper cutter. Locals Mae Slater and Josephine Jones were making programs for a Sunday church program at New Central Baptist Church. "We always wind up coming here when we have a project for the church," Slater said. "The people are efficient." Kinko's latest initiative will reduce carbon dioxide pollution by 278 tons per year -- the equivalent created by driving 16,000 round trips on the Schuylkill Expressway or 619,000 miles, according to Peter Adels, general counsel for state-wide environmental nonprofit group Penn Future. The energy comes from natural resources such as wind, hydro and solar power, avoiding the creation of air pollution that comes from burning coal or petroleum, the most common sources of energy production. "Making electricity causes more air pollution than any other industry in the USA," said Green Mountain representative John Holtz. "It releases billions of tons of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury into the air each year." Adels explained that "people think [green energy] is this new thing for the future that only environmental radicals would use, but we want to show people that it's here and reliable right now." Beyond this recent venture, Kinko's has a history of being an environmentally conscious chain. Fastidious about recycling and using a certain percentage of post-consumer waste in their products, the company has used Green Mountain as a power source since 1999, but to a lesser extent. And recently, Penn Future added Kinko's to its "Green Energy Hall of Fame."

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