Norra Cards

Norra Cards are decorative cards printed on very special paper, made from flowery grass mowed from bee-friendly roadsides in the Netherlands.

Curious to read more about this paper and why it is important to look at sustainable paper alternatives in the first place? Just keep reading!

Sustainable paper alternatives

Did you know that in 15 seconds, 199 tons of paper are produced, of which 93% comes from trees, using chemicals and massive amounts of water? In my quest for a sustainable paper alternative, I stumbled upon Voorbij©, developed by Drukkerij Holland bv, a Dutch printing company. The paper is made with flowery grass mowed from bee-friendly roadsides that promote biodiversity in the Netherlands. VoorBIJ paper consists of 70% unbleached recycled paper fibres and 30% flowery roadside grass.

The end product is a high-quality sustainable greeting card that has a very rustic and natural look and feel. This combines very well with Nordic nature designs of Norra cards!

Paper: indispensable but resource intensive

Even though our world becomes increasingly digitalized, paper continues to make our lives more comfortable: it is a very valuable product!

We do not only use paper to print or write on, but also for the gift wraps around our birthday presents, the package around our favourite food (or basically any product we buy and use), the magazines, novels and cookbooks we read in, the greeting cards we send to our beloved ones, and so on….

At the same time, the paper industry has a resource-intensive nature:

| Of the paper produced today, 93% comes from trees

| To produce one paper greeting card out of trees, you need 2.5 litres of water.

| The chemicals used to bleach and process the paper are harming the environment.

Fortunately, the industry is constantly evolving and innovating, and various sustainable solutions have been discovered.

Interested in learning more?

• This report of McKinsey focuses on sustainable innovation in the paper industry