No printed card
Sending an onlycards card does not require a new paper card or envelope.
The feeling, without the paper
Digital cards & the environment.
A thoughtful message doesn’t need printing or postage. That’s a practical benefit of digital delivery — not a claim that digital has no footprint.
No postal delivery
The recipient opens a link, so this card does not need physical transport.
Not zero impact
Devices, networks and hosting use energy. Images, video and AI creation also have environmental costs.
Trees and paper: the published estimates
These are the most commonly quoted figures. They come from different years, countries and methods, so they don’t agree with each other — treat them as rough estimates, not proven facts.
UK Christmas cards
About 1.7 billion cards used roughly 200,000 trees in one year.
Source: Friends of the Earth, 1997 (reported by The Independent)
US Christmas cards
Roughly 300,000 trees a year.
Source: American Forests, 2016
All US greeting cards
About 7 billion cards, or 140,000 tons of paper — roughly 2.5 million trees a year.
Source: Widely repeated; original source unclear
Card paper thrown away
About 195,000 tonnes, linked to roughly 4.6 million trees.
Source: Card retailer blog
Cards per tree
One tree makes roughly 3,000 cards; about 6.5 billion cards bought each year.
Source: Card company press release
What the research says
A comparative product carbon-footprint study by thinkstep-anz, summarised by the Life Cycle Association of New Zealand in 2022, found a lower carbon footprint for an e-card than for a paper card under the study’s assumptions. It identified transport as a major source of the paper card’s emissions, and electricity for creation and use as a major source for the e-card.
The comparison depends on distance, transport and electricity generation. It is not a measurement of onlycards, and we do not use it to promise a fixed saving for every card.
Read the lifecycle comparisonHow many trees are cut down for cards?
We have not found a reliable worldwide count specifically for greeting cards. A calculation based on cards sold and an assumed number of cards per tree is not a verified tree count: paper sources, recycled content, card size and manufacturing yield all vary.
We won’t present “millions of trees saved” as an established fact.
A considered choice
Some paper cards are treasured for years; others are recycled or discarded. Digital delivery avoids making and posting this particular card. It still uses resources, and we have not carried out a lifecycle assessment of onlycards.