Business Management - Sustainability

For a print provider, going green can transform an ordinary printed product into a powerful marketing tool, even as it serves customers as their most durable and trusted communication vehicle.

QUESTION: What do Sports Illustrated, Kiplinger’s, Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone have in common? Answer: All of them have published “Green Issues.” Unless you’ve been isolated from the world around you, you’ve noted that increasingly more companies, industries and institutions are taking great pains to profess their Green-ness. All of this activity is being heralded under the banner of Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR. (Yes Virginia, there is another CSR. It’s not just the Customer Service Rep anymore.) Go anywhere. Green is a headline. It’s a leading marketing message, and it’s being placed at the head of the promotional line. Why now? This

ABOUT A year ago, one of my clients came to me and said he wanted me to help his company get FSC certified. My response was F-S—WHAT? That was the start of a journey that has led me to become somewhat of a specialist in the relatively new world—for printers at least—of sourcing from well-managed forests. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, like many, I knew about recycled content, federal guidelines for its use, and a few other environmental paper-related preferences such as acid-free options. But I never gave much thought to virgin fiber or the forests from which they were sourced.