Green Options

I’ve written a lot in these posts about print vs. electronic media and the sustainability issues faced by both (yes, both! electronic media aren’t as green as people think). Now you can investigate more deeply for yourself. On November 17, Target Marketing and Printing Impressions will offer a webinar titled “Paper or Electronic? The Impact of Choices.”

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:

What They Think, a commercial printing online portal, offers a variety of resources invaluable to anyone wanting to green their print marketing programs.

When I look at my email inbox, it seems that double-digit percentages of incoming emails now have something to do with green. Manufacturers, retailers, service providers — they are all finding green angles to their company announcements. Even opening a Twitter account is an excuse to say marketing is going green by reducing the amount spent on print.

As I was participating in an online discussion as part of an industry discussion group, I was pleased to see that a regional lettershop, St. John Associates, was also promoting its sustainability efforts. At the bottom of its posts, as part of its company signature, it included the following:

We are an EPA Certified Green Power Partner!

We buy enough monthly Wind Power RECs to offset 50% of our electricity usage and enough monthly Carbon Offset credits to cover 100% of our direct emissions!

Want to know more about our environmental efforts? Visit our website at . . .

Last time, I listed four characteristics of digital print production that endears it to those looking to green their print marketing. The fact that one of the three primary ink types used by digital presses (HP’s ElectroInk) uses solvent, however, may raise suspicion.

Solvent-based inks are used in other digital production processes—most visibly wide-format inkjet used for applications like banners, vehicle wraps, and signage—and those presses release VOCs and require venting. What makes ElectroInk different?

From an environmental marketing perspective, not all solvents are created equal. In the wide-format/display environment, the inks need to perform two Herculean tasks.

1. They must adhere securely to non-paper substrates like vinyl.
2. They often must be lightfast.

If they are used for applications like vehicle wraps, they must do both.

Birgitte Rasine is the chief evolution officer of LUCITÀ, a firm believer in abolishing junk mail.

Help.  My hands are sweaty, my heart’s racing, my vision’s blurred and I can’t breathe. I’ve been shredding since last Monday and my office is nearly filled to the ceiling with little multicolored bits of paper that resemble viruses magnified under a microscope.  I feel myself sinking down through this swamp of cellulose dust, flailing about in vain to find a chair or cabinet to hang on to, grasping for one last breath of clean air… then darkness.

That’s my nightmarish vision of what it would feel like if I took all the direct mail that I ever received and shredded it all in one go.  I’d probably pass out, either from exhaustion or breathing pulverized paper pulp.

Let me be blunt: I hate junk mail. Whoever invented it, I want to dunk them into an Olympic-size pool filled to the brim with mailers, postcards and superficially impersonal letters.  I want to pour all the ink that’s ever been wasted into their bath tub and make them sit in it.  I want them to lick every single postage stamp ever used for direct mail.  I want them to look in the eyes of every one of their victims—once vibrant, dynamic people who are now spending their lives trying to organize, shred, get rid of junk mail they never asked for.  Their names are sold without their knowledge, their identities traded like junk bonds in darkened, dusty corners of cyberspace. Do-not-call and do-not-mail lists are riddled with loopholes. Few of us have the time or the resources to mount legal campaigns to protect the rights that should naturally be ours to begin with.  Do we need martial law to protect ourselves from the insistent march of these malicious mailers?

In real life, I’m somewhat more diplomatic.  In principle, I get why direct mail exists. There are legitimate reasons used by legitimate organizations with legitimate desires to inform their audiences about the work they do, their products and services. The problem is, it’s purely financial.  There’s not a single piece of direct mail that I have ever received that was sent for any other reason than acquiring donations, selling products or services, or other monetary gains.

This post was originally published at the Eco-Libris blog on Wednesday, July 9, 2008.

I wrote few times in the past about direct marketing and its environmental impacts (check here and here). This is definitely an issue where an innovative approach combining creativity, green basics and visionary thinking is required to make things better and greener. And we’re happy to update you that someone is actually doing it!

Springwise reports that Paris-based direct marketing agency TBWA\Excel launched its Mailing Vert service (Le Mailing Vert) in partnership with envelope maker Manuparis, Vincent Printers, Groupe Moselle Vieillemard printers and direct marketing/sales logistics firm Diffusion Plus.

Excel is an agency of TBWA group that specializes in fundraising and commitment to social service associations, foundations and corporate citizens. I believe the idea behind the Mailing Vert service is to provide Excel’s customers, many of whom are non-profits, with a greener offer that will enable them to have direct marketing campaigns, promoting their causes with as little environmental impact as possible.

In my first post on “green” marketing, someone posted a comment about a company called Smart Levels that prints on recycled paper with soy-based inks. This piqued my interest, so I went and checked out the company’s website. Sure enough, there it was—the company’s proud declaration on its home page.

(Gotta love the tree frog, too. I’m a sucker for tree frogs.)

I think it’s terrific that more and more printing companies are moving toward environmental sustainability. It’s also terrific that marketers are increasingly caring about environmental sustainability—to the point that printers see investing in and promoting it as an effective strategy.

What caught my eye on Smart Levels’ home page, however, was not what was there but what was not. There were no other links to further efforts toward environmental sustainability. This might lead one to the conclusion that, by itself, printing on recycled stocks and using soy inks is enough.

But is it?

What Else Is in My Paper?

In reality, while recycled content and soy inks are a great start, there is much more you can do. Let’s just consider the paper. For example, have you ever asked the question, “Beyond recycled content, what else in my paper?”