How Can Print Marketing Be Greener?
Print advertising and marketing has always been very hard on our planet. According to The Green Press initiative, the pulp and paper industry is the fourth largest industrial polluter in the United States; paper uses 40% of the world’s wood harvest and takes up 26% of our landfills.
So how can we take a greener approach to print marketing? We have posted before about ways to run a greener business, but is there a way to create the print collateral that most businesses need and also make an effort toward reducing our impact on the earth? The good news is there are a number of ways to become greener in your print marketing practices, starting now.
Make small size changes add up.
Most print jobs are runs of more than a hundred items. Many are thousands or tens of thousands of sheets. With a little bit of thought, your design team can make your print collateral a smaller size, or fit more of the pieces onto a standard press sheet. When your print run is in the hundreds or thousands, an quarter-inch reduction on the height of a sheet can end up saving press sheets along with the water, energy, and trim waste that every job produces.
Plan well before the job.
Sometimes a print run comes back and you learn belatedly that the new piece is missing a vital piece of information. A new phone number needs to be added, a fresh hire should be listed, a product change necessitates a photo switch. The word comes down that the entire run must be replaced. Your printer may be able to save you money on the new job, but now your first run ends up entirely in the landfill. Check your decisions all the way up the chain before pulling the trigger on your print run and you may have just made the extra step needed to save one landfill an unnecessary burden. You might even be able to convince the boss to use this run and run updates on the next version.
Use 100% post-consumer waste (PCW) recycled content papers.
PCW papers are those that have actually be used before they are gathered up for a new project. Paper recovered from your curbside recycling program is PCW, for example, while paper scraps and over-prints collected from a print shop are not (those are considered pre-consumer waste).
Consider carbon offsets.
Look into investing in projects that reduce greenhouse gas production. A single carbon offset unit is equivalent to one metric ton of carbon dioxide (or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases). The government regulates some corporate carbon offsets, and the voluntary market is growing. Ask your marketing team or print vendor about papers offset by renewable energy credit programs.
Ask for vegetable-based ink.
Vegetable-based inks contain less toxins and solvents than the traditionally-used petroleum-based inks. Papers printed with vegetable-based inks are also easier to de-ink, which means they perform well in recycling programs. The presses using these inks can be cleaned with water-based cleaners, which makes for a healthier workplace and reduced purchases of toxic cleaners.
Avoid excess finishes.
By designing without the addition of foil stamps, varnishes, and laminates to your print pieces, you are once again greening up your print marketing. Those processes use heavy chemicals and processes that can defeat good ink and PCW paper choices.
Not sure where to look for greener print marketing designers and print providers? Calvert Creative can help! Contact us today and learn how we can help you make greener print marketing choices.
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