Time for Michelle Obama to bin that catalog!

A mail order fashion company that recently attracted Michelle Obama has ranked bottom in a study of paper wasters. The First Lady was spotted ordering a Boden catalogue on a recent visit to the UK. However, Boden has just scored zero points and has been labelled 'waster' in a project assessing UK companies for their willingness to address paper efficiency. If Mrs Obama wants to look good today, she needs to send her Boden catalogue to be recycled and ask the company to stop sending out junk mail.

The Shrink project has published a scorecard of the Winners and Wasters in the Paper Chase. It ranks 20 major UK companies on the efficiency of their paper use. Top of the pack is financial company Standard Life, with catalogue retailers Boden and Freemans at the bottom.

The scorecard shows that some financial companies and magazine publishers are taking up the challenge to cut paper use with great enthusiasm. The Shrink project website show-cases some of the ways these companies have found to save paper.

However, catalogue companies perform woefully, seeming to be completely uninterested in reducing their junk mail volumes, even though this would save them money and could improve their image. Boden and Freemans were the least responsive of all the companies approached by the project.

The American First Lady's interest in Boden scored the company a frenzy of media coverage and free advertising as fashion pundits pondered what clothes she might order. This was a public relations boon for the company, which is usually associated in Britain with the right wing of society, selling clothes popular with Conservative politicians. Today Mrs Obama has another reason to question whether dressing from Boden would be sending the right message to her admirers.