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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As part of our efforts to promote green printing, we continue to closely follow the printing industry, keep you posted with printers who have already adopted eco-friendly practices in their business and speak with them on the state of green printing, the trends, the challenges in the present and their plans for the future.

We posted already two interviews with green printers (Greg Barber and Deb Bruner) and today we are happy to have another green printer on our blog: Livio Ciciotti of Monroe Litho (Rochester, NY).

Livio Ciciotti is an Account Executive with Monroe Litho based in Rochester, NY. He is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Print Media. He has been invloved in printing since high school. Livio is also in the Marine Corps Reserve, an honor graduate from the School of Infantry he now serves with 3rd Battalion 25th Marines out of Buffalo, NY and is preparing for a deployment to Afghanistan.

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How green is your toilet paper? Not sure? Here’s the guide that will give you the answers: Greenpeace has just released on Monday its latest Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide.

The report is providing customers with important information about tissue products and toilet paper using 3 criteria: usage of 100% recycled paper, at least 50% post consumer recycled paper and bleached without toxic chlorine compounds.

Each category includes ranking of brands, where products that meet 3 criteria are recommended, products that meet 2 criteria are defined as “can do better” and products that meet only one or no criteria at all are “to be avoided”.

Let’s focus for a minute on toilet paper, the most popular product among the ones reviewed in this report. The brand in the first place is Green Forest, which uses 100 percent recycled and 90 percent post-consumer content, as well as chlorine-free manufacturing processes. Other brands that are also recommended are: 365, Natural Value and Seventh Generation.

And who’s to be avoided? Well, when it comes to toilet paper you will find there few familiar names: Scott, Target, Wal-Mart, Kleenex Cottonelle, Chramin, Quilted Northern and Angel Soft. According to the report they all use zero recycled paper (and of course zero post consumer content) and are bleached with chlorine compounds [just take into consideration the follwoing comment from Greenpeace: In the few cases where companies did not respond to our request for verification of recycled content percentages and whitening processes used, we assumed 0% overall recycled, 0% post-consumer recycled and ECF bleaching.]

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The DCWV website has a great idea gallery with sample pages from each collection, like the Guess Who sample page shown here which features the Green Stack collection. Check out the other awesome Green Stack sample pages after the jump.

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If you love Amy Butler’s fabric designs you will swoon over her paper line.  The Lotus Collection, by the famed fabric and surface designer, is printed with soy-based inks on post-consumer waste recycled paper.  Lotus products come in recycled pakaging made from 95% post-consumer waste.  What’s more is the packaging is reusable.  The back card stock of the paper pads is printed with cut-outs that can be used as embellishments.  

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Being mindful parents, we want to make sure that everything we do (including those birth announcements) are kinder to our great planet.  The announcement which resides in your childs memory book will also serve as a reminder to them over the years about your commitment to raise them green.

The best way is to avoid phyiscal announcements altogether and set up a Baby Blog.  Blogs are FREE and online, so no products are used to create them.  You can change the look and update daily with new baby happenings and photos.  Another bonus to an online blog is the ability to share details of the pregnancy and instant news of baby’s arrival. Spread the word about your baby blog via email.

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“My name is Greg Barber and I specialize in environmental printing. “ This is the first line on the homepage of Greg Barber Company, an eco-friendly printer and also the printer that prints Eco-Libris’ stickers and flyers.

Greg is also one of the most experienced people in the area of green printing and we thought it would be very interesting to hear from him what does it mean to be an environmental printer and what’s going on in this market. We weren’t wrong. This interview is a great opportunity to get a glance of the growing market of environmental printing, which as you will see is becoming not only beneficial for the environment, but also for businesses’ bottom line.

Hello Greg. You describe yourself as an environmental printer. Can you tell us what that means?

We are eco-friendly in our paper, inks, energy and our recycling of our waste. We specialize in printing on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper, rock paper, and tree free paper ,and we use soy based inks, for our offset printing, and 100% non toxic toner for our digital work. Our energy is primarily Wind energy, and the paper we stock comes from mills that get their energy from either Wind or BioGas.
How long have you been an environmental printer? how did you get into the business of eco-friendly printing?

I started at the 20th anniversary of Earth Day in 1990. I saw middle school children celebrating Earth Day and I decided to join them by specializing in Environmental Printing.

Is it true that it’s more expensive to print on recycled paper? if it is, what’s the premium you currently need to pay for it?

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The eco-holiday tips are beginning to pour in everywhere. Al Gore was on Oprah last week discussing the impacts of global warming and giving advice on how people can help the environment and save some cash this holiday. And, Obama is certainly doing his part with his plans to green the White House.

If you are an early bird ecopreneurist who wants to distinguish your business this holiday season or are at odds on what to give your customers, staff or business partners, one thing you can do is get a CarbonFree® Product Certification from the non-profit, Carbonfund.org. With CF, with the click of a mouse, you can give the gift of carbon neutrality. 

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A post by contributing guest writer Melissa Chungfat.

I’ve been seeing a lot of Thomas Friedman on the tube talking about his book Hot, Flat, and Crowded. The three-time Pulitzer Prize winner is getting a lot of buzz stressing the necessity of a green global industry. Ecopreneurs are key in developing innovative solutions to deal with the tremendous global environmental problems.

The book title refers to the convergence of global warming, the rise of the middle class, and the exponential population growth. These factors drive the following five trends over their tipping point:

• Energy and resource
• Petro dictatorship
• Biodiversity loss
• Climate change
• Energy poverty

In our culture of convenience, so many people want to help the environment – if they can keep all of their luxuries; they want to green their habits – if it’s convenient enough; they want to buy green products – if it’s easy enough to find. But this attitude won’t fly anymore with the problems we are facing.

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Netflix Origami has over a dozen different well illustrated examples of folded critters, containers, and more. Thinking ahead to the holidays, many would make great substitutions for bows on small presents. The cube and heart would be cute tree ornaments too!

If any of you get Blockbuster instead, I’m wondering if those flaps work for this as well? Experiment and let us know in comments.

Nils Davis, said motivating commenter and blogger at Keeping the Lights On, posed this great question:

Can magazines be turned into magazines again, or do they always require ‘virgin’ paper?

Well, I don’t yet have the specifics to answer the first part of that question. But it seems the answer to the second part is a resounding “No.”

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Part of a video series that will highlight the “secret life” and environmental impact of everyday products, the 5 1/2-minute-long paper video is more informative than its length might suggest. There are hints of “Hungry Planet: What the World Eats” in the images of an ordinary U.S. family and the piles of paper it consumes over the course of two weeks. (The stacks shrink considerably for families in the U.K. and even moreso for families in Mexico.) There are stats, too, presented in “An Inconvenient Truth” style:

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Welcome to the first Carnival of Green Crafts!

For more information about the Carnival, please see the Carnival of Green Crafts home page here at Crafting A Green World.

We’re pleased as punch to announce that the next Carnival will be August 9th at BlogHer, courtesy of Hobbies, Crafts & DIY Contributing Editor Debra Roby. Send in your posts via the carnival submission form today!

Thanks so much to all the crafters who shared their posts with us for this Carnival.  Let’s dig in!

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Now the nations largest publisher and distributor of children’s books has joined the movement. Scholastic, announced recently that the company is further strengthening its sustainable paper procurement practices. Their goal:

…to increase its publication paper purchase of FSC-certified paper to 30% and its use of recycled paper to 25%, of which 75% will be post-consumer waste.

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In that same spirit, it also makes sense that a publisher of religious materials has now created the first "green" Bible. Thomas Nelson Inc., a Bible and religion publishing company, will release just such a Bible today.

While the need for a more environmentally-friendly Bible might seem obvious, actually creating one was a challenge. Thomas Nelson had to work extensively with its paper manufacturer, Domtar, to develop a new grade of paper that was both green and lightweight enough for Bible paper. The company did at last find a solution, and the result of its efforts — the first Bible printed on recycled and Forest Stewardship Council-certified paper — will be released today, Tuesday, Oct. 9.

Thomas Nelson is also looking for other ways to reduce its ecological footprint, said Mike Hyatt, the company’s CEO. "In addition to offering eco-friendly products, we are striving to implement ‘green’ practices in our daily activities," Hyatt said.

A growing number of book publishers are taking similar steps. The Green Press Initiative, a non-profit group, has so far engaged with more than 140 publishing companies — including Random House, Scholastic and McGraw-Hill — to institute more environmentally responsible practices in the publishing industry. In addition to Thomas Nelson, other religion publishers joining in that effort include Ave Maria Press, Baker Publishing Group and Intervarsity Press.

In a related initiative, more than 220 players in the U.S. book industry have signed onto the Book Industry Treatise on Responsible Paper. Once in effect, the standards outlined in that treatise are expected to save the equivalent of five million-plus trees and cut greenhouse gas emissions equal to those put out by 45,000 cars.

According to the Green Press Initiative, more than 40 percent of the industrial wood harvested around the world each year goes toward making paper — "a sobering fact given that forests store half of all carbon in the biosphere and deforestation accounts for 25 percent of human-caused (carbon dioxide) emissions."

"Given the Bible’s message of stewardship and the growth of the creation care movement, we hope to see other Bible and religion publishers following Thomas Nelson’s lead through steps to use paper with less impacts on forests, people and the climate," said Tyson Miller, director of the Green Press Initiative.

Image: Mike Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

The Rainforest Alliance is working with children's publisher, Scholastic, to print the book using paper containing 30% post-consumer recycled content, and to make sure at least 65% of the 16,700 tons of paper needed for the initial printing of 12 million copies is FSC certified. There will also be a limited run of 100,000 copies on paper that contains 100% post-consumer content.

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) sets the standard for sustainable forest management. Criteria for FSC certification includes biodiversity conservation, responsible harvesting of timber, worker and land-use rights and observance of international laws and treaties.

Each Harry Potter book has increased in length over the years. The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, came in at just over 600 pages, and in the first 24 hours sold 6.9 million copies. The seventh installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be 784 pages and is anticipated to put up similar (if not greater) numbers in sales.

For a publisher to step up and purchase FSC certified paper and recycled content paper for a book of this magnitude is a big deal and will hopefully prompt other publishers to follow suit.

Via CSRwire.com and MSNBC

(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?”

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