WhatTheyThink Environment & Sustainability Section

Economics - One of the 3 E’s of Green

By Gail Nickel-Kailing on August 28th, 2008

The Ventura County (CA) Sustainability Council has tackled environmental issues for a number of years, they are not “johnny come lately” players in the green space. The group is in the process of designing a new website and logo and draft designs included the dollar symbol, much to the consternation of council members.

David Goldstein, environmental resource analyst for the county of Ventura, put it rather nicely in his summary of the meeting when he said:

Environmental rhetoric occasionally casts profit as a force leading to pollution and consumption of resources… Economics is as important for sustainability as two other “E” factors: environment and social equity.

Regardless of your definition of the “Triple Bottom Line” - whether you call it “Ethics (or equity)/Earth/Economics” or “People/Planet/Profit” or even “Community/Climate/Commerce” - the end result is that without commerce, without profit, the whole thing comes to a stand still.

Posted in Corporate Sustainability Initiatives, Marketing Strategies - No Comments

Mandy Haggith, author of Paper Trails, Speaks to WTT

By Gail Nickel-Kailing on August 27th, 2008

Mandy Haggith is a freelance writer, researcher and activist. She has spent the past decade campaigning for the world’s forests, including lobbying at the United Nations, working as a consultant for Greenpeace and WWF and writing articles for Pulp and Paper International and Resurgence magazine.

While researching her book, Paper Trails, Mandy traveled to forests around the world, toured paper and pulp mills, and was “face to face” with both those in - and those affected by - the forest products industry.

Her book is fascinating and challenging. Hear what she has to say to us:

WTT: Your book challenges all of us in the Graphic Arts industry since we are in the business of using paper for communication and promotion. What do you think is the number one effort or initiative that our industry should be looking at to reduce the pressure on the world’s forests?

MH: I want to make it clear right from the start that I am not anti-paper. I love paper! Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Corporate Sustainability Initiatives, Green Printing Processes, Marketing Strategies - No Comments

What does a “Sustainability Department” do?

By Gail Nickel-Kailing on August 26th, 2008

More and more companies are adding “Sustainability Managers” or other folks responsible for corporate sustainability activities; sometimes it help to ask: “What does a sustainability department do?”

GreenBiz.com recently posted a piece explaining it here>> Briefly, author Daniel Winokur tells us that: Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Corporate Sustainability Initiatives, Marketing Strategies, Useful Tools and Resources - 5 Comments

Design Choices Reduce the Impact of Printing Operations

By Gail Nickel-Kailing on August 25th, 2008

There are plenty of ways to use smarter design to reduce materials and energy in the production of printed materials and to ensure that they can be recycled at “end of life.” A conversation between Debra Rizzi of Rizco Design and Jonathan Bardelline, GreenBiz Radio, is full of really good ideas. Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Corporate Sustainability Initiatives, Green Printing Processes, Marketing Strategies, Useful Tools and Resources - 1 Comment

Can Print Marketing be “Green?”

By Gail Nickel-Kailing on August 22nd, 2008

Heidi Tolliver-Nigro, a regular contributor to WhatTheyThink and long time researcher for TrendWatch/Industry Measure, has a post on a blog called The Inspired Economist. She starts off her first post jumping right into the tug-of-war between printed materials and their digital alternatives with:

“In marketing, electronic alternatives are often framed as the green alternative to print because they don’t require paper, ink, packaging, and physical transportation. However, there is a lot more to one’s environmental footprint than this. Take, for example, one’s carbon footprint. On this issue, electronic alternatives with their massive, 24-hour energy drain start to look less appealing.”

Way to go, Heidi! Lookiing forward to more of your insights! Read her entire post here>>

Posted in Corporate Sustainability Initiatives, Green Printing Processes, Marketing Strategies - 2 Comments

The Six Sins of Greenwashing

By Gail Nickel-Kailing on August 20th, 2008

Greenwashing - or the perception of consumers that they are being misled by a company regarding the environmental practices of the company or the environmental benefits of a product or service (according to Wikipedia) - is something that should be avoided at all costs.

When you’re making your “green pitches,” check your statements against this list to make sure you’re not at risk of painting them with a brush full of green paint: Read the rest of this entry

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3M Goes Green

By Gail Nickel-Kailing on August 19th, 2008

John Simonetta, owner of Proforma Green, a Proforma print distributorship, posted comments about 3M’s move to go green on Ecopreneurist. Proforma, the Print Services & Distribution Association’s (PSDA) Largest Print Distributor in North America for two years running, is a print distributorship with more than 600 member offices in the US and Canada.

In 2007, 3M started providing eco-friendly versions of all their basic products called Post-it® Recycled Notes. John’s concern: Is this green washing or real concern?

I suspect neither and both. Really I think it has to do with their bottom line and the growing chorus of folks that want green alternatives in the office. So the more we support items like a green Post-it the more will be sold and the more the idea will work itself into the fabric of 3M.

Also right now they only offer 30% postconsumer content. Come on 3M you can do better than that. Many of our other vendors selling a similar product do.

Read the entire blog post here>>

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EPA Climate Leaders Program

By Gail Nickel-Kailing on August 18th, 2008

Monadnock Paper Mills has joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Leaders program and pledged to reduce its corporate-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

What is the Climate Leaders program?

An EPA industry-government partnership, the Climate Leaders program works with companies to develop comprehensive climate change strategies. Partner companies commit to reducing their impact on the global environment by completing a corporate-wide inventory of their GHG emissions based on a third-party audited environmental management system, setting aggressive reduction goals, and annually reporting their progress to the EPA. Through program participation, companies create a credible record of their accomplishments and receive EPA recognition as corporate environmental leaders.

The EPA offers a number of documents to help you get started with this program:

Program Brochure: This brief overview (PDF) (2 pp, 1.3MB) includes a step-by-step introduction to Climate Leaders and the benefits of joining the program. The Partnership Directory (PDF) (2 pp, 589K) contains program facts and a printable list of partner companies and their greenhouse gas reduction goals.

Program Guide: This document (PDF) (13 pp, 2.5MB) outlines the Climate Leaders program, including guidance for developing a greenhouse gas inventory and management plan, and information on EPA technical assistance and national public recognition.

Join printers like EcoPrint and Sandy Alexander or vendors and suppliers like Monadnock, Boise Cascade, Kodak, International Paper and Xerox to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Posted in Corporate Sustainability Initiatives, Green Printing Processes, Marketing Strategies, Useful Tools and Resources - No Comments

Today’s Letter to the Editor

By Gail Nickel-Kailing on August 15th, 2008

Any and all comments are greatly appreciated and every post has a place where you can add your comments, thoughts, agreements, or disagreements.

Occasionally comments come directly to me, and I’d like to share one that I received yesterday regarding the post containing a list of paper procurement ideas from ForestEthics and my response below: Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Marketing Strategies, Miscellany - No Comments

Greening of Google

By Gail Nickel-Kailing on August 15th, 2008

Google - that company whose motto is “Don’t Be Evil” - is also going green. Here is a little video snippet showing some of the things they are doing to be more sustainable. If a 10-year old company with around 10,000 employees can make the effort to minimize their carbon footprint, so can the rest of us!