Green Options

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Most of my discussion last week with Patty Calkins, VP of Environment, Health, and Safety at Xerox, focused on her company’s efforts in the realm of sustainable business… so, not necessarily “ecopreneurial” material. As “document management” is a concern for any business owner, small or large, I made sure to address entrepreneurial issues with her. Specifically, I gave her a scenario: I’m the owner of a green start-up, and want to implement as many sustainable practices as possible while watching costs. How do I balance these priorities in terms of printing, paper use, and the energy costs that come with them?

It turns out (fortuitously … I didn’t know this up front) that Xerox was planning to release a series of tips on this topic this week in anticipation of Earth Day. That information was released today:

• Cut paper use. Make two-sided prints and copies using the “duplex” function, print multiple images per page, and print only the quantity you need at the time you need it. Saving paper also saves energy: Environmental Protection Agency estimates say it takes 10 times more energy to manufacture a piece of paper than to create another print or copy.
• Recycle the paper you use, and use recycled paper. Install bins in several office locations to make it easy to collect paper for recycling or for reuse as notepaper. And commit to purchasing recycled paper – it can meet the same performance specifications as non-recycled paper.

Editor’s note: The recent report Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the U.S. Book Industry tried to answer that question; Eco-Libris blogger Raz Godelnik took a look at its findings in an earlier post. Today, he interviews one of the main contributors to the report’s preparation: Tyson Miller, founder and director of the Green Press Initiative. This post was originally published on Saturday, April 12, 2008.

After I wrote here about the publication of the of Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings from the U.S. Book Industry, and reviewed some of the most important findings, it’s time of the third (and last) part of our coverage of the report.

Today I am very excited to bring you an interview I conducted with Tyson Miller, the Founder and Director of the Green Press Initiative (GPI). The Green Press Initiative, together with the The Book Industry Study Group (BISG), initiated and prepared this impressive report that presents and analyzes the book industry’s ecological footprint.

Not only that Tyson Miller is one of the people who led the work on the report, but he is also one of the most knowledgeable people about the issues brought up in the report. In the last seven years he directs the Green Press Initiative (which he also founded) – a program which is catalyzing environmentally responsible book publishing in the U.S. He initiated the Book Industry Treatise on Responsible Paper Use, which more than 150 publishers have signed so far, and is also involved in the efforts of big publishers, such as Simon & Schuster and Scholastic, to develop green policies.

Therefore, I was very happy for the opportunity to have this interview with Mr. Miller, shedding more light on the report and its implications. I hope you’ll enjoy it as well!

Can a company that manufactures copy machines, and sells more paper than any other single brand, really walk the talk on sustainable business practices?

That question framed my response to an offer to talk with Patty Calkins, Vice President of Environment, Health and Safety at Xerox Corp. After all, don’t copy machines “[consume] vast amounts of water, paper, and energy…?” I’ve seen numerous press releases on environmental issues from the company whose name is now synonymous with “photocopying,” but I was still skeptical: isn’t this still a business model built on heavy inputs of energy and paper?

Patty and I talked on the phone last Wednesday (April 9), and, as in other situations, my reservations were addressed directly and concretely. I had forwarded a version of the above question prior to our talk, so she was ready for me. Among the company initiatives she detailed for me:

Editor’s note: No, not paper or plastic… we’ve been there. David Shaw takes a look at the environmental impact of hand-washing, and finds there’s a better way… even better than “Press button. Rub hands under warm air. Wipe hands on pants.” David originally published this post to Professor Simran Sethi’s Media and the Environment course blog on Wednesday, March 5, 2008.

I drink at least a liter of water a day, which means I end up using the restroom at least five times a day. In the bathroom at work, we have the fairly standard stack of single sheet paper towels that you pull from the holder one at a time (although sometimes a clump comes out, if they’re packed too tightly). It takes two paper towels to dry my hands thoroughly.

So, on a daily basis I use at least 10 paper towels, or 50 paper towels a week, or 200 paper towels a month, or 2,400 paper towels a year! That is a lot of paper. But, I have to wash my hands and I have to dry them. Yet, every time I grab the paper towels, I feel a tinge of guilt. So, I started trying to find ways to conserve paper towels.

First, I decided to cut down to just one paper towel. Yeah, my hands were still a little damp when I left the restroom, but they air dried within a minute or two. Still, with one paper towel per hand washing, I was using at least 1,200 paper towels a year. Not good enough.

Editor’s note: This week, Raz Godelnik at Eco-Libris takes a look at a new study of the book publishing industry’s environmental footprint. As gathering information is the first step towards making change, we hope this report provides the data necessary for this industry to continue moving in greener directions. This post was originally published on Wednesday, March 12, 2008.

This is a very exciting week for the book industry and anyone involved in the efforts to green it up. The reason? Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts:Findings from the U.S. Book Industry has been published.

This 86-page report was prepared by The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) and The Green Press Initiative (GPI) (with support from a number of industry sponsors). Seventy-six publishers, representing just under half of the market, participated in the study, along with 13 printers (about 25 percent) and 6 paper mills (about 17 percent).

Why is this report so important? Because this is an up to date analysis of the industry’s ecological footprint. This is the most detailed survey someone has done in years to create a clear picture of the book publishing industry’s environmental impacts.

These measurements will help not only to know better where the industry is standing now, but also to better plan how to move forward and green up the industry as well as to evaluate the progress later on. In one word: benchmark. Or as BISG describes the report on its website: “a benchmarking survey which will establish a baseline for tracking climate impacts and progress by the U.S. book industry in environmental improvements.”

Warning: so, as the video and Oprah’s darling du jour and guerrilla closet warrior Peter Walsh so clearly outlines, our pack-rat habits are making us chubby. They can also be a barrier to us going green. Not surprising, did you notice that your lean and toned friends also tend to have pretty darn spotless, sustainability-forward and organized homes, while your plumper friends tend to lavish in “chaotic creative” spaces. Hmmm…

Depending on your business, mailing can be a major expense and large use of resources. But it doesn’t have to be that way. EcoEnvelopes is a new company that has created reusable envelopes. As in they can be two-way, between you and your customer, eliminating the need for reply envelopes. It’s been said that a mailer, in order to be effective, needs 6 distinct pieces to it, to engage the potential customer in a number of ways. With such a visually striking mailer as the ones offered by ecoEnvelope, it could take much less then that.

These envelopes can serve the dual purpose of reducing resource use in terms of paper, handling, and tracking, and at the same time shining a green light on your company. With more then 80 billion reply envelopes mailed each year in the US, this is not an insignificant impact. According to ecoEnvelopes, every one million ecoEnvelopes used saves an estimated 250 million BTUs of energy and 37,000 pounds of greenhouse gases.

Let me guess, you have a ream of 100% recycled, Rain Forest Alliance Certified paper conveniently stacked next to the printer. You earn additional eco-brownie points by printing on both sides of each sheet. Good for you! Now, don’t take off running for the recycle bin. Your humble memo may be destined for a higher purpose before meeting it’s maker.

We are all familiar with tiny paper cranes and jumping frogs in the world of origami.These […]

An http://www.greenprinteronline.com dispatch.

When companies make the shift to reduce the carbon footprint of their supply chain, paper is one of the first – but perhaps most overlooked – ways to shed those office carbon pounds.

But the carbon, environmental and cost savings benefits of switching from virgin paper to more sustainable paper didn’t escape Sustainable Business Design - a consulting firm that provides carbon footprint, greenhouse gas audits and “The Low Carb Corporate Diet” ™ […]

The book “50 Simple Things You Can Do To Save The Earth” listed stopping unwanted junk mail as its #2 recommendation. Some interesting junk mail statistics from the book include: Each year, 100 million trees are used to produce junk mail; 250,000 homes could be heated with one day’s supply of junk mail; and Americans receive almost 4 million tons of junk mail every year. Yikes! And I thought these unwanted ads were just an annoyance! […]

In my last post, Recycling Misconceptions part 1, I touched on the uncertainties of recycling, plastics in particular, that I think perplex many of us. Well last week I attended a Green Renter lecture here in NYC and found out some more interesting things about recycling that I didn’t know. The evening’s lecturer, Samantha MacBride of NYC bureau of waste prevention, reuse and recycling was able to put many things into perspective, the most interesting being the amount of paper we consume and the amount that ends up in our landfills.

She got me thinking. Since recycling has been on my radar lately, I have been more aware of my habits and the habits of the people around me. I noticed that I am much more diligent in getting my plastic and glass bottles in the correct place for recycling than I am with all my paper products. It wasn’t until I attended the lecture that I realized how much less of a guessing game paper recycling is, just how important it really is — more important than the resin code mystery in my last post — and how much I neglect the privilege. According to Samantha Macbride, if you want to make a difference, recycle more paper. She explained to us that paper is the most under recycled material. According to the EPA, 35% of total U.S. municipal solid waste generated in 2006 was paper and paperboard (graph source: EPA report).