Green Options

I’ve been talking about saving money and going “green” at the same time. Let’s look at a terrific example from a high-profile marketer, AutoNation.

AutoNation, the largest U.S. retailer of new and used vehicles, wanted to streamline its marketing materials. AutoNation consists of 383 different franchises, comprising 35 different brands, in 17 states. Philosophically, it was committed to personalizing its direct mail materials, but imagine the nightmare that this structure presented!

To meet its challenge, AutoNation’s printer—the high-volume direct mail company DME—had taken the “brute force” approach, producing preprinted stock “shells” for each campaign and brand. These were carted to DME’s humidity-controlled warehouse, stored, counted for individual print runs, and carted back for each print run, in which the personalized information was overprinted.

This was an expensive labor- and inventory-intensive process involving multiple set-ups, print runs, and back-and-forth trips to the warehouse. From a green perspective, imagine the impact of the multiple offset print runs, the energy used for product storage, and the fuel used for delivery. It’s quite a carbon footprint.

So DME developed a new solution—one that would reduce inventory, manage the various brands, process multiple personalized orders in the same print run, and provide a better means of response tracking to AutoNation.

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.

The trash can…or not. Although many marketers consider the today’s applications driven by dry toner, liquid toner, and inkjet digital printing to be the technology’s greatest asset, the “green-ness” of the technology is a nice bonus, too.

This is important to marketers because environmental printing is no longer just good social responsibility. It’s good marketing. Companies with “green” programs have a marketing advantage through positive association. By utilizing environmentally responsible printing practices, this gives you a nice plug for your business.

How is digital printing “green”?

1. The output technology is socially responsible. 1:1 printing is output from digital presses. These presses use no process chemicals (although liquid ink presses and inkjet presses may use solvents in their ink formulations; dry toner presses do not). They use no film or plates. Start-up waste is minimal—10 sheets or less, compared to 100 or more sheets for most offset presses.

Although conventional wisdom is that digital inks are difficult to remove during the recycling process, this is outdated. An increasing number of digital press manufacturers are now promoting the de-inkability of their toners, even from recycled paper. This is true even of HP, whose liquid toner “ElectroInk” produces at or near offset-quality photographic quality but is suspended in a mild solvent, and even of high-speed inkjet presses like Kodak Versamark.