Changing behaviour is difficult; especially one that concerns the environment. It falls in the category of “empty activism” – everyone agrees, but no one takes any action.

Activists propagating “paperless offices/schools” will vouch for this. They run multiple drives to get people to reduce “paper consumption” but the no. of print outs taken are yet to show a significant dip.

Hence to truly make a change; we need to move beyond behavioural change. We needed to change the tool of education itself – the quintessential notebook.

Thus was born – “The Green Millimetre” reducing the line spacing in notebooks from 7.5 to 6.5 millimetres.

One millimetre less in just 4 schools = 4.6 millions pages less = 552 trees.

And that’s by influencing just 4 campuses of Lyceum of the Philippines.

This reduction was too miniscule for students to notice while writing, but large enough to save 4.6 million pages.

Our new product is the same old sheet of writing paper with a new standard of line-space –

1. 6.5 instead of 7.5 millimetres.

2. This led to 36 line spaces in a page instead of the usual 30

On taking a closer look at the notebooks, we found that the line-space was 7.5 millimetres.

Our idea started taking shape from here. We realized that by reducing this line-space, the students would have more space to write on every page of their notebooks. They could write more in less.

This was the genesis of the “Green Millimetre”.

What followed was a series of experiments of progressively reducing this line-space to a point where the students find it comfortable to write and the teachers find it legible to read. This magic distance was arrived at 6.5 millimetres.

It made no visible difference to the naked eye but helped save up to 16.67% space per page.

Lyceum Of The Philippines has already started implementing “The Green Millimetre” in all its campuses by advising all its vendors to implement the new standard (letter available on request.)

Collectively, this will lead to an annual saving of more than 500 trees.

We can only imagine the potential of this idea when applied across the whole of Philippines as well as outside.

Our biggest result was felt when we tested the new paper with a fresh batch of students and teachers who didn’t even notice any difference. The impact of this idea is disproportionate to the effort an individual needs to make in terms of saving paper.

When environmental impact is a necessary price for education.

Paper has always had an uncomfortable relationship with environmental impact. It’s necessity as a stationery product means trees need to get cut and we live in a less environmentally friendly world.

However, it becomes tough to argue for the environment when a child’s education is the context.

Notebooks – a child’s tool to chronicle his learnings and crystallize his imagination.

A child’s education vs. saving trees. Not an easy choice to make.

It’s one that Lyceum of Philippines, a group of schools in the Philippines decided to take on. They acknowledged that while notebooks were necessary for children, they were also significant contributors to reducing trees. Hence the rather complex challenge.

“How do you reduce the environmental impact of the very bedrock of children’s education – notebooks?”