With great fanfare yesterday, Xerox Corporation unveiled a first-of-its-kind paper for digital printing that uses half as many trees as traditional paper, while lowering the cost to mail printed material.

At the core of the development are Xerox’s technical achievements, which have increased the amount of a tree that can be used (doubling the yield per tree from 45% to 90%) and used less water and chemicals in production (resulting in reduced energy use and emissions by up to 75%). And finally, as the paper is materially lighter in weight, it costs less to transport (and uses less energy along the way).

The downside to the paper, however, is that it does not age as well as normal paper, turning yellow over time.

Commentary: This is an excellent example of aligning business innovation with environmental responsibility for greater profit (in keeping with Ethisphere’s slogan GOOD. SMART. BUSINESS. PROFIT.).

Due to the “yellowing” issue, however, there will be limits to how widely this paper will be used (do you really want all of your documents to turn yellow?). As Xerox itself points out, the core market for this yellower greener paper will be in paper printouts which are not intended to have a long shelf-life (such as invoices, statements, direct mail pieces, manuals, catalogs and brochures).

Xerox appears to be stepping up its sustainability and resource commitments across the board. Less than two weeks ago on July 19th, the company also announced that it was joining the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), increasing the total membership of the group to 31 corporations representing nearly $2 trillion in revenues.