Greening print. It’s probably the hot topic in the industry right now and it’s one we’ve decided to tackle for this issue. Certainly, as regular contributor Nancy Clark puts it in her story, adopting green practices seems like the obvious and smart thing to do to stay in business. It’s in the air. It’s our collective 21st century reality. And who doesn’t want to help save the planet, and boast about their green creds to boot?
 

Trouble is, in the avalanche of green initiatives being touted by all sorts and sundry, there’s as much empty hype and confusion as there is earnestness, a genuine desire to be a good corporate citizen and pure business opportunism.
 

One of the things we wrestled with as we put this story together was return on investment. We spent time considering whether the story should be presented as a guide for going green in order to increase profitability. Well, that proved tricky. While all the printers we spoke to were emphatic that implementing sustainable practices had been a good business move, it all got very mushy when they were asked to point to quantifiable increase in revenues or profit.
 

But implementing a green business model—and going green means an all-encompassing way of changing your processes—carries costs, and makes demands on time and resources. Some­time you can pass the costs on to customers, and sometimes you just have to eat them. Green power for example, costs 20% to 30% more then conventional power. Try getting your customers to pay for that. As one printer put it, he just regards it as another form of willing taxation. The challenge, as always, is in the balancing act.
 

But adopting green practices as a means of attaining greater profitability is not something that seems to have materialized yet.
 

The other challenge is the growing lexicon of certifications. A while ago one printer—not one who’s part of this story—challenged me to investigate and get the dirt on some of the organizations that certify businesses. It’s just about planting trees, he said, what’s new about that?
 

As you will see on our poster (a piece to let you chart your course as you embrace sustainability, and distributed as an outsert with your issue of Graphic Monthly) the number of certifications is now large and growing—and it’s a serious memory test to keep track of each one. Do you need to be certified for everything? At which point will it become so confusing that customers tune out?
 

And yet, going green is something you may not have a choice about. Despite the challenges, and the raft of overblown promises by people who want to sell you seminars, products or services, most businesses will have to bow to consumer or regulatory pressure and clean up their shop.

Just remember, going green may not get you any more business, but failure to do so, to whatever extent you’re able, almost certainly guarantees that you will lose business. We hope our story shows you how to be smart about it.

 

For our part, we’ve printed this issue on Sappi Hannoart FSC grade, the outsert poster on Sappi Flo Gloss 10% PWC, FSC stock; and the cover sheet on Via Smooth, 60 lb., 100% PCF, FSC paper.