Take the example of J. C. Penney, which made marketing headlines today when it announced that it would be discontinuing its semi-annual Big Book catalog after the Fall-Winter 09 season. Over the years, J. C. Penney was finding that its catalog was less a direct selling channel than a way to prime the pump for online sales. Instead of wasting volumes of paper, ink, and coating — not to mention the fossil fuels to deliver the 800-1000-page books — it decided to slim things down.

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From the experience of the City of Palo Alto, participants will gain independent, real-world information on how to approach and plan for implementation of a carbon management system. Karl Van Orsdol, sustainability leader and energy risk manager for the City of Palo Alto, will describe the city’s recent experience implementing carbon management software (from Hara Software, Inc), including a discussion of target reduction goals, motivating factors, system selection and implementation, new processes and organizational responsibilities, key challenges, and achievement of $300-600,000 in annual cost savings.

For a broader look at carbon management information systems as a rapidly emerging solution class, Don Bray, president of AltaTerra Research will provide background analysis on business drivers, concepts, practices and system capabilities. “Palo Alto’s experience demonstrates that manually gathering baseline information and using spreadsheets to calculate and track results is not sustainable,” said Mr. Bray. “Achieving meaningful, long-term reductions in resource use, emissions, and associated dollars requires new processes, tools, and operating responsibilities.”

Further information and registration for the event are available by clicking here.

Like this post? See all my “Greening Print Marketing” posts.

Image: Courtesy of The Stock Exchange (image uploaded by hisks) 

Speakers will be:

Don Carli
Senior Research Fellow
Institute for Sustainable Communications

Brian Kozlowski
Director, Sustainable Development
NewPage Corp.

This free webinar will discuss the tools, processes, and success stories that exist to help direct marketers determine not only which media best fit the job at hand but also how to improve the carbon footprint of all channels.

Topics to be discussed include:

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According to the study, “The Green Revolution” (September 2009),

• 84% of consumers say that either some or most of the products they purchase are green (mainstream)
• Only 1% say that they used to buy green products but no longer do (sticky)
• Only 8% of consumers make green the primary factor in their purchase decisions (not deep)

The number one reason people are deterred from buying green products? They are perceived as being too expensive, with 69% of respondents giving this answer. Forty percent view green products as not offering enough variety and choice.

What is the difference between the moderately interested (light green consumers) and the very committed (dark green consumers)?

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The audit, produced using New Leaf Paper’s Eco Audit Calculator, uses New Leaf EcoBook paper, which uses 100% postconsumer waste. This is something new in the book market, which is normally so sensitive to price.

While the paper does cost more than virgin, these costs are offset by the extreme environmental benefits of switching to paper made with 100% postconsumer fiber. Because virgin paper costs less than recycled papers, the book industry has traditionally gone almost exclusively with virgin stocks. But Scholastic decided to make an environmental statement — a big one.

According to the audit, on the 950,000 print run, this simple switch resulted in a savings of 29,600 trees, 12.4 million gallons of water, 20,300 BTUs of energy, 1.4 million pounds of solid waste, and 2.7 million pounds of greenhouse gases. That’s more than just a drop in the bucket.

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EcoAlign, a strategic marketing agency focused on energy and the environment, decided to find out. In September, it conducted 1,000 interviews, comparing against a similar survey conducted in September 2007. The sample was balanced to match the U.S. population by age, gender, region and ethnicity.

The results? Green Align found that consumers generally have positive associations with the terms “energy efficiency,” “energy conservation” and “clean energy,” but their understanding of what these terms mean has remained the same or decreased since 2007.

They also have low or negative understanding about technical terms such as “demand response” (resulting in the recommendation that such terminology not be used in external marketing communications) and showed a lot of confusion about green pricing terminology such as “peak pricing,” “green pricing,” and “fuel supply pricing.”

Moreover, consumers remain confused about the definitions of basic terms. They cannot articulate the difference between energy conservation, energy efficiency and smart energy. Less than one third chose the correct definition for those terms from among a selection of definitions (multiple choices).

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Last year, the commercial printing industry information portal What They Think released a report on the status of green in the printing industry. This month, in Printing Continues to Go Green, WTT updated the report with fresh data, comparing the numbers year over year.

In the June 2009 survey, WTT researchers found the following year-over-year changes:

• Printers are far more likely to identify themselves in their marketing and promotional materials as environmentally sensitive businesses — 33%, up from 26% last year
• They are slightly more likely to justify new equipment purchases because of their more favorable environmental impact — 22%, up from 20%
• They are more likely to have special “green” certifications from independent organizations (Forest Stewardship Council, Green Seal) — 22%, up from 15%
• They are slightly more likely to say that promoting their green efforts helps their business image — 39%, up from 35%.

But it’s not all good news. Commercial printers don’t see a lot of customer gratitude for their efforts. In the June 2009 survey, they were noticeably less likely to say that it was essential to their customers and more likely to say that it was a major expense without a major business benefit. Only 2% said it was critically important to their customers.

This is a real problem. Why?

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• Lower start-up waste
• Smaller, more targeted production volumes
• Presses with a higher percentage of recycled (or recyclable) parts
• Lower energy use (in certain cases)
• Ability to drive document management models that can reduce print waste and unnecessary print volumes that can reduce your carbon footprint and save money at the same time

All the while boosting your marketing effectiveness at the same time.

But for these digital-print-driven applications to work, it takes more than a digital press. That’s just the tool. It’s the smarts behind them — the marketing savvy and understanding of the technology — that drives results. To this end, Digital Printing Reports can released an October 2009 update to its “Digital Printing: Transforming Business Models & Marketing” training and educational report, incorporating the latest software and hardware technologies from Print 09.

The report is designed to help marketers get their minds around the issues that drive digital print production and marketing applications and make the most of them. It has five sections:

1. Technology discussion from a marketer’s perspective
2. Application classifications with illustrative case studies
3. How digital printing greens marketing
4. More effective ways of evaluating marketing program success
5. Best practices for greatest marketing impact
6. Conclusions and additional resources

Incorporating applications driven by digital printing is not only a step in the green direction. Done right, it’s also smart marketing.

InfoPrint Solutions Company did. A joint venture between IBM and Ricoh, InfoPrint conducted a a survey that found three out of four respondents would consider opting for traditional mail delivery if they were informed it had less of a negative environmental impact than email.

In addition, 50% of consumers indicated that they still prefer to receive marketing information about new products or services via traditional mail rather than email. Only 44% would rather receive marketing via email.

Do preferences convert into action? Yes! Not only do customers prefer print mail, but they are more likely to open it, even if both communications come from a bank.

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In addition to their cost efficiency, this is one reason that many businesses are looking at inkjet. Increasingly, even office-style machines have terrific image quality (commercial-quality inkjet presses are now as high as 1200 dpi) and they produce little or not heat. That means low energy use.

A very funny promotional video from RISO explains it well. Grandma may like her color copies because they are “nice and toasty,” but this is because of the heat generated by the machine and, consequently, their high energy consumption. Hence the line, “You could cook a turkey in there!” (I’ll leave the animation to your imagination).

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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?

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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.

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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.

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  ]]> http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/09/06/the-new-green-media-print/feed/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/31/pre-cycling-a-contrarians-perspective/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/31/pre-cycling-a-contrarians-perspective/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:25:00 +0000 Heidi Tolliver-Nigro http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/31/pre-cycling-a-contrarians-perspective/ 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.

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  ]]> http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/31/pre-cycling-a-contrarians-perspective/feed/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/28/the-paper-industry-fights-back/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/28/the-paper-industry-fights-back/#comments Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:05:04 +0000 Heidi Tolliver-Nigro http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/28/the-paper-industry-fights-back/ 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.

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  ]]> http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/28/the-paper-industry-fights-back/feed/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/24/are-pixels-greener-than-paper/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/24/are-pixels-greener-than-paper/#comments Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:27:05 +0000 Heidi Tolliver-Nigro http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/24/are-pixels-greener-than-paper/ 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:

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  ]]> http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/24/are-pixels-greener-than-paper/feed/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/19/taking-sustainable-packaging-to-a-new-level/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/19/taking-sustainable-packaging-to-a-new-level/#comments Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:45:00 +0000 Heidi Tolliver-Nigro http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/19/taking-sustainable-packaging-to-a-new-level/ 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.”

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  ]]> http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/08/19/taking-sustainable-packaging-to-a-new-level/feed/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/07/20/psychographics-help-take-marketing-green/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/07/20/psychographics-help-take-marketing-green/#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:36:41 +0000 Heidi Tolliver-Nigro http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/07/20/psychographics-help-take-marketing-green/ 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.

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  ]]> http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/07/20/psychographics-help-take-marketing-green/feed/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/07/15/even-traditional-print-can-be-greener/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/07/15/even-traditional-print-can-be-greener/#comments Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:13:38 +0000 Heidi Tolliver-Nigro http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/07/15/even-traditional-print-can-be-greener/ 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,

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  ]]> http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/07/15/even-traditional-print-can-be-greener/feed/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/07/09/green-plastic-cards-you-bet-even-recycle-em/ http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/07/09/green-plastic-cards-you-bet-even-recycle-em/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:33:58 +0000 Heidi Tolliver-Nigro http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/07/09/green-plastic-cards-you-bet-even-recycle-em/ 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.

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  ]]> http://inspiredeconomist.com/2009/07/09/green-plastic-cards-you-bet-even-recycle-em/feed/