Don’t Listen to Kermit, It is Easy Being Green
Today, as you all should know, is earth day. As marketers sometimes it feels like struggle to honor the earth and stay green. When you start calculating the print materials, the postal transportation, the impact of inks, and the overall product waste from over printing you start to feel like maybe you need to go to confession tomorrow.
I decided to chat a bit with our president Paul Strack, who knows a thing or two about printing and confessions, to see what we can do to help offset the environmental impact.
Greg: Can marketers request recycled paper or materials in their print jobs?
Paul: We actually use a large number of recycled materials our printing process to begin with. A large portion of our paper is recycled, we use recycled boxes, and I recycle a lot of old jokes so I am sure that makes some impact.
Greg: How about the chemical impact of using inks?
Paul: Our Kodak Nexpress is actually green itself, it uses no harmful chemicals and the toner we use for it does not affect the “recyclability” of the paper. Not to mention some genius suggested we use all the pollen off my truck for yellow ink, so we have cut back on the impact of the employees washing my truck every Thursday.
Greg: Over printing is always an issue for me. I have taken jobs before where we have thousands of out dated materials from as far back as the 70’s sitting around that will have to be thrown away.
Paul: We have made the move as a company to focus on digital printing. The plus side to digital is that it allows you to print exactly what you need without waste. You no longer have to print several thousand extra just to hit price breaks. This reduces the quantities needed and as a result saves landfill space and trees. Now let’s just hope my wife doesn’t find a way to get rid of her outdated husband and reduce the space he takes up.
Greg: So essentially CustomXM already took the steps for marketers to reduce their environmental impact and there is nothing we can do to make ourselves feel better?
Paul: Yeah, basically. Let me know if you need the number to my priest.
Greg Henderson is marketing and social media professional with 8 years marketing and online experience. Greg has worked with several companies focusing on integrating online and offline marketing.
