Green Options

Three days ago, I blogged about the EPA’s Green Power Partners site, which lists the top green power users in the country. That post got more traffic in a day than my posts normally get in a month. That was very exciting for me. People clearly care about this issue. At least for me, when all things are equal a company’s commitment to environmental sustainability can make the difference between one product choice and another. I hope it does for others, too.

Let me build on that by saying that there is even more good news than this. Did you notice that the Green Power Partners site also has Top 20 lists by category? These include college & university, local government, retail, on-site, and printers.

What’s interesting here is printers. This is a highly unglamorous category. Why would the EPA care about commercial printing and packaging companies? For the same reasons that anyone interested in environmental sustainability should care about them.

1. Printing is the third largest manufacturing industry in the country

2. Printing is a very aggressive with environmental sustainability, including its use of green power.

Put these together and you have the third largest manufacturing industry making a major move to sustainability. When not just individual companies but an entire industry embraces green technologies and processes, it makes a real difference. That’s exciting!

Yet, where’s all the buzz? E-media! With its 24-hour-a day, 7-days-a-week power usage, its ubiquitous energy-using devices from desktop computers to laptops to servers to cellphones, PDAs, and every other mobile device that now blanket the planet and drain the power grid. Meanwhile, because printing uses — dare I say the word — paper, it’s the bad guy?

Have you ever been curious about the companies that use the most green power? Or that are 100% powered by wind? Such a list might change the way you think about making purchases, wouldn’t it?

Would it change the way you purchase soft drinks? Yogurt products? Financial services? If you knew that one company used 100% green power to manufacture, market, and sell its products, would it make you more inclined to purchase from it rather than another company? I don’t know about you, but it would me.

Such a list is compiled by the EPA’s Green Power Partnership.

But it’s not just wind power. The Green Power Partnership list compiles the list of top purchasers of green energy — period — which includes biomass, solar, and even geothermal, as well as wind.

Let’s take a look at the Top 10 green power users. But before I do, I want to warn you that there is a shocker in here. One of them is a paper company. Yes, the big, bad paper industry is represented among the top 10 users of green power in the country!

Here is a list of the top 10 green energy purchasers, the energy sources they use, and the percentage of their annual energy use that is purchased from green sources.

I know I’ve been a bit like a dog on a bone about the fact that print is not necessarily the enemy, but I think it’s important. Marketers are being hit like a locomotive with the idea that e-mail and other electronic media are green because they don’t use paper, but there is a lot more to environmental friendliness than cutting tree. Like . . . energy use.

This week, the print industry will gather in Chicago at Print 09 (September 11 - 16), one of its largest annual trade shows. There, the The Print Council will promote a new position paper titled, “Why Print Is Green.”
“Our industry is a leader in recycling, sustainability and pollution control,” says Ben Cooper, executive director of The Print Council. “In fact, we pioneered putting those concepts into widespread practice over the past three decades. But we did so quietly, to the extent that there is a lack of awareness regarding the environmentally responsible nature of print.
“Why Print Is Green” describes ten specific ways in which print is green, from the responsible products used, renewable energy sourced, increased recycling rates, to improved design and delivery methods. The report is intended to demonstrate why print media is the environmentally sound choice for communicating with the audiences they want to reach.

Among the facts the white paper documents:
In 2008, more than 57% of paper consumed in the U.S. was recovered for recycling, more than any material.

Recently, a new term has been coined in the green socioverse — “precycling.” While defined different ways, the term basically refers to a change in customer thinking toward the reduction in waste and a predisposition toward recyclable packaging and packaging or manufacturing components that make products easier to recycle.
There are some great trends coming out of precycling: purchasing products in bulk to reduce packaging; creative re-use of products (re-filling of plastic water bottles with filtered water, re-using plastic coffee containers to store unused paint); use of canvas shopping bags; growth of “do not mail” lists that reduce unwanted catalogs and junk mail; and so on.
These trends provide real, measurable environmental benefits. But it’s easy to oversell precycling, too. In the hype, the danger is that we can end up working against true sustainability.

In today’s marketing world, the paper industry is seen as the big, bad guy — the energy hogging, landfill-clogging waste producer that needs to be replaced by cleaner, more efficient electronic media. But is this really the case? The paper industry claims that the opposite is true. It points out that electronic media are huge consumers of energy, and when you consider that the paper industry is one of the largest consumers of clean energy like wind power, the tables may actually be turned.

In a recent publication, “Pixels or Paper?”, International Paper wrote:

Our industry is one of the biggest users of renewable, low-carbon energy in the world. Sixty percent of the energy used to make paper in the U.S. comes from carbon-neutral renewable resources and is produce on site at mills. In addition, these facilities use combined heat and power (CHP) generation systems, which are 80-90% efficient. Fossil fuel use and purchased energy in this industry is steadily decreasing.

It’s a debate that’s raged in the printing and marketing community for some time. If you switch to electronic methods of communication, are you really greener than if you use print? Or by switching some portion of your print marketing to email or other e-communications, are you really helping the planet?
International Paper has produced a new brochure in its “Down to Earth” environmental series, “Pixels Vs. Paper: Are Pixels Greener Than Paper?” that addresses this question. Of course, it is written by a paper company, so the answer will not be a surprise, but the brochure does contain some interesting tidbits that marketers may want to keep in mind:

When we think about “sustainable packaging,” we think about recycled paper and plastics, but there is a lot more to sustainability than that. In running across a company called Distant Village Packaging, which specializes in sustainable packaging, that fact was brought home in a powerful way. . . in pictures.
I learned of A Distant Village when it introduced what it calls “the world’s most environmentally-friendly labels.” Called Pure Labels, these are adhesive-backed inkjet or laser printer labels made of wild grass paper. They are not only produced with 100% recyclable materials (including no HDPE or other plastics) but are manufactured according to what the company calls “the strictest adherence to socially responsible business practices.”

I was just reading about a report on the psychographics of Hispanic teens, one of the fastest growing demographic segments—projected to reach 62% of the entire teen market in 10 years. Among other things, they are described as extroverted, outspoken, wired, and defined by culture. The top three media consumed by Hispanic youth are 1) the Internet, 2) TV and 3) radio.

In light of the barrage of data on the decline of direct mail, I’ve done a lot of writing these days in the defense of print. But the psychographics of your customer or prospect base (such as Hispanic teens) may well determine which medium (or media) you use. That could mean greening your marketing program at the same time.

I’m never a fan of reducing your use of print simply for the sake of greening. After all, electronic media have their own carbon footprints, too. They are just hidden in energy use, disposal of used electronic equipment, and so on. Comparing the carbon footprints of the two can be very complicated.

Like it or not, “green” is a relative term. If you purchase a truck that gets 18 miles per gallon, is that good or bad for the environment? If you were driving a truck that got 13 miles to the gallon, it’s good. The same applies to many marketing technologies.

It’s easy to look past traditional offset and gravitate to digital and electronic technologies because of the perception that they are greener. But the fact is, traditional offset is still a necessary component of a successful marketing program. Fortunately, as I’ve written here before, offset technologies are getting greener and marketers don’t need to feel guilty about using them.

For example, Heidelberg is currently doing the media rounds announcing that its Speedmaster XL 105 offset press (pictured above) consumes between 10–20% less energy than comparable systems. Although energy costs only account for between 2-3% of the production costs of a print job, every little bit helps.
According to Heidelberg,

If you’re looking for “green paper,” throw a dart. You’ll hit something. If you’re looking for green plastics for durable cards, CDs, DVDs, and other marketing devices, you’ve got a bigger challenge ahead.

This is one of the reasons I love LinkedIn. Its discussion groups offer a wealth of information on marketers’ experiences with such products. With vendors hawking the discussions, too, “where can I get this?” often spawns some terrific answers.

Most recently, someone asked about a durable card printed on both sides made of material that the marketer could say is “green.” He wanted something that looks and feels like a plastic credit card, but green angle was very important. The card also had to be durable and have at least a two-year life.
One recommendation? The Laser Clean card (offered by Brandt Affixing), which is made from 40% recycled content, all of which is PCW (post consumer waste.) It measures 9 mils in thickness and is designed to last over two years. Brandt Affixing offers integrated cards with laminates made from corn.

For heavier cards, Teraco offers a recycled product, EnviroCards, which is a plastic card made from a blend of pre- and post-consumer recycled plastic.