How do you send a mailing with less impact?

By first looking at what can go. No wrapper is better than a sustainable wrapper, and a lighter mail item is better than a heavier one. That saves material, and it almost always saves postage too.

Last updated: 22 August 2026 · Jeroen Balke, operations director of Vogelaar

Start with the question of whether anything has to go around it

The most sustainable packaging is the one that is not there. For many mail items that is perfectly possible.

Form	When it works	What it saves
Unwrapped	A self-mailer or a card goes out just as it is. A brochure or magazine can go unwrapped too, with the address printed straight onto the cover	Everything: no material, no operation
Paper band	Around a magazine or leaflet. The band carries the address and can be printed	No film, and usually no envelope needed
Envelope	When several components have to go in or the whole needs protecting	Paper instead of plastic
Film	When the whole has to stay visible or stay together	Then it is about which film

On paper banding we are among the few in the Netherlands who can still do it by machine. That is why we often propose that form where someone else would arrive at film.

Whether the banding paper is recycled is up to you. It is possible, but not required: it depends on what you choose or supply yourself. If you want to go that way, say so with the enquiry and we will take it into account when buying.

If film does have to go around it

We wrap in cane sugar film as standard. That is a bio film: the raw material is cane sugar instead of crude oil. The film is recyclable and belongs with the plastic waste.

We switched over completely in 2018, and we have barely used ordinary film since. Almost everything wrapped here goes in cane sugar film, which means the fossil raw material has all but disappeared from our wrapping work. We do not put a figure on what that saves in CO₂: that would be a number we cannot substantiate.

Cane sugar film is not biodegradable and therefore not compostable. That difference is often muddled, including in other companies' quotes. We claim only what can be demonstrated: a plant-based raw material and recyclability.

So always ask your supplier what exactly is meant by a green claim on film. Biobased says something about the raw material. Biodegradable and compostable say something about the end of its life, and that is something else entirely.

The box: less air is less of everything

With a parcel the gain is not in the board but in the air between. A box that is too roomy costs more board, more filler and more transport volume, and the product shifts inside it and arrives damaged.

Our packing machine makes a made-to-measure box for every order: not a standard size with a pile of filler, but exactly what the product needs.

The European packaging regulation, the PPWR, has applied since 12 August 2026. It states that a shipping or e-commerce package may contain at most 50% empty space, and filler such as paper shreds, air cushions or bubble wrap counts as empty space.

That requirement takes effect on 1 January 2030, or later if the accompanying European implementing act is not yet in place. That is not us hedging: the regulation says so itself, and that act does not exist at the moment. We already meet the standard itself.

What else the PPWR asks of you, and why that obligation sits with you and not with us, is in our information document PPWR and your print work. Ask your contact for a copy.

Size and weight do double duty

Less paper is less material, and at the same time less weight in the post. A lighter mail item falls into a lower weight band sooner, and then the environmental gain is a cost saving as well.

Where those lines lie and how to design towards them is on saving on postage and paper sizes and weight.

And one that is often forgotten: do not mail to addresses that do not want to receive it. Anyone sending addressed advertising mail has to consult Postfilter and the deceased register in advance. Every item that is therefore not printed and not sent is the cleanest saving there is. See Postfilter and the YES sticker.

What we do ourselves

This is about our own chain, because that is the only thing we can vouch for.

CO₂-neutral production since 2010 and aquifer thermal energy storage since 2002: we draw heat and cooling from the ground instead of from a boiler.
100% green electricity from Dutch sun and wind. Our supplier issues a certificate for it every year stating the source and the emissions, and those emissions are zero grams of CO₂ per kilowatt-hour.
Measured with the Milieubarometer, not estimated. Every year we map energy use, material use and transport kilometres.

What we can show of that is on Sustainability, including the footprint itself.

Want to know what can go from your mailing? Send us what you have in mind. We will say what can be done without a wrapper, what that saves in weight and what that does to the postage. See what we do at direct mail, or request a quote.