Gail Nickel-Kailing

Now that you’re on the path to becoming a truly sustainable printer, here are a few thoughts about how to reach that goal and some metrics that may help you tell when you’ve arrived. Environmental Leader publishes a quarterly “Environmental & Energy Data Book” full of charts and graphs presenting environmental, sustainability and energy-related data.

Successful companies are good at generating profitable ideas, yet they often overlook business opportunities that can be found within fundamental societal issues. It is in the root causes of those issues that new competitive advantages may be found.

As print service providers, knowing the issues your customers face will help you better solve their problems. Your customers’ customers—consumers—look differently at environmentally friendly products depending where they fall on the green continuum. Until green products and services feel normal, the middle is unlikely to change behavior.

School may be out for our kids, but it’s never out for business owners and managers. Here is a short reading list to help you along the path to sustainability. Summer reading, anyone?

The authors of a new report just released by the Rochester Institute of Technology have concluded that there’s a lot of activity going on in the printing industry regarding sustainable practices. That’s good news. The bad news? There’s a lot more that needs to be done.

The bad news is that conventional marketing is out. The good news is, green marketing—or “sustainable branding,” if you prefer—is in. Green marketing is an over-arching strategy that extends to all corporate functions, rather than a series of tactics.

The trends expressed by your customers—and the customers of your customers—will influence the products you sell and produce. Researchers from Amazon have mapped a number of green product segments and labeled zones on a map of the United States as “hot” or “cold” depending on deviation from national averages.

ForestEthics has described the Sustainable Forestry Initiative label as “greenwashing,” and said the certification’s requirements permit practices that are harmful to the environment. In response, the “Conservation Chamber” of the SFI Board has distributed an open letter refuting ForestEthics’ assertions.

To help printers “learn from their peers,” Canopy launched a Printer Leadership List to help them identify ways to implement paper purchasing policies that will benefit their businesses, communities and the world’s forests, while reducing the impacts of climate change.

“Talking green” with your customers means understanding their businesses and their needs. Your sustainability strategies should not be focused on just your company; you should be looking for prospects that will resonate with your values and principles.

Black liquor has been a hot topic and meant big bucks to the paper industry since 2007. And when we talk about “big bucks,” we mean big—as in billions of dollars. Let’s take a step back and look at how this whole thing works.

While News Corp. is claiming to be the first global media company to achieve neutrality, that accomplishment is based on carbon off-sets. Now it is working on reducing absolute emissions. To reach that goal, it has implemented a number of efficiency projects, which generally have an ROI of two years.

While not following the true form of the 12-step method, the actions outlined in the “12 Steps to Sustainability: How Every Company Can Implement Sustainability to Improve the Bottom Line and the Environment” report are intended to reduce environmental impact.

After more than 10 years, the Federal Trade Commission has released proposed revisions to the “Green Guides” used to help companies apply “truth in advertising” when making environmental claims. The new changes can be summarized in two words: Prove it.

For years now, you've been told that you need to be a “green” printer. Well, now I’m going to tell you to be a sustainable printer instead. Green and sustainable have much the same meaning to most people.