Des arbres dans la forêt

Let’s agree to protect the world’s forests

Why? We can’t live without them.

Forests serve as the Earth’s lungs, absorbing carbon emissions and releasing oxygen back into the atmosphere. In other words, forests both clean the air and provide us with the oxygen we breathe. In fact, more than 20% of the world’s breathable oxygen is produced in the Amazon rainforest alone.

Below are some highlights of our journey to protect the world’s forests.

DocuSign for Forests still image

DocuSign is committed to the world’s forests.

Since 2003, we’ve helped hundreds of millions of people around the world to replace over 93 billion sheets of paper with digital processes that do not require paper. Together, we have preserved over 10 million trees required to make paper.* Read the DocuSign for Forests brief.

Saving paper saves so much more.

The 93 billion sheets of paper DocuSign and its customers have saved is just the beginning. Also saved were over 9 billion gallons of water needed to make that much paper, plus over 545 million pounds of waste. And because that paper was not made, our planet was spared over 7.9 billion pounds of additional CO₂.*

Like our products, our people help save forests, too.

Through the DocuSign IMPACT initiative, our employees have volunteered thousands of hours at organizations promoting healthier forests, including urban forests in the communities where we work and live.

We’re making a multi-million dollar impact.

As part of our DocuSign for Forests™ initiative, we have committed over $3 million to organizations doing critical work to preserve the world’s forests. The first $1 million commitment was made to the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation to support Dr. Goodall’s continuing fight to protect the planet’s resources.  Other DocuSign for Forests grantees include The Wilderness Society, Rainforest Trust, The Nature Conservancy, Trees for Cities, and Friends of the Urban Forest.

Minimizing our own Impact on the Environment

We are also committed to reducing our own impact on the environment by taking bold action to curb the worst effects of climate change. To do so, DocuSign has signed onto the Business Ambition for 1.5°C campaign through the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi). This means we are committed to halving Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030 from a 2021 baseline and reaching science-based net-zero no later than 2050.

DocuSign has been certified as a CarbonNeutral company each year since 1 January 2022, using the CarbonNeutral Protocol’s definition of carbon neutrality.  We believe carbon neutrality delivers immediate action today, supporting the transformation to a low-carbon economy.  DocuSign believes that the purchase of these carbon credits enables carbon finance to go to projects which are avoiding and reducing emissions elsewhere in the world,  and ensures they are financially viable and sustainable. You can find full details here.

See what you can do.

Be smart about your paper use: Use recycled or forest-certified paper. Before printing, ask yourself whether it's really necessary. If you print, use two sides, reduce margins and font size. When you're discarding paper, recycle. And, need we say it, use DocuSign, because our products save paper and the resources required to make it. **

There are even more ways you can help.

To help you save even more, here are two helpful links: the Environmental Paper Network’s Paper Purchasing Guide and Paper Reduction Guide.

*Estimates of paper savings are current as of January 2024 and are based on the aggregate number of transactions via DocuSign eSignature since the company was founded in 2003. The model assumes that recipients of a document would print the document once, on average.

DocuSign uses the Paper Calculator from the Environmental Paper Network’s Paper Calculator Version 4.0 to estimate the environmental savings from reduced paper usage. Since not all paper comes from virgin tree fiber, the estimate of environmental impact from reduced paper usage assumes a recycled content percentage of 10%, slightly higher and more conservative than the 8% estimate contained in the Environmental Paper Network’s 2018 State of the Global Paper Industry Report. The Environmental Paper Network’s Paper Calculator uses data from North America. For more information on the Paper Calculator, please visit: https://c.environmentalpaper.org/about.html.

** DocuSign recognizes that its operations create environmental impacts, such as carbon emissions from data centers and employee travel.  The environment is a key stakeholder in our business, and we will continue to prioritize activities to reduce the environmental impact of our business, such as emissions from operations, to maximize the benefits of using DocuSign’s digital processes over paper-based alternatives.