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We presented The Business of Green Media Conference at Cal Poly in January. Robert Tapella, Public Printer of the Government Printing Office appointed by the President gave the banquet keynote.
"Under my administration, GPO's business will be conducted in an environmentally, economically, and fiscally sound, integrated, continuously improving, efficient, and sustainable manner.
If you would like a copy of his complete keynote Click Here
Honoring outstanding professionals for their dedicated efforts to advance the print production industry and elevate its standards of excellence the award will be presented in New York City on April 3rd.
| | | | Greetings! |  One of my marketing heroes, Peter Drucker, said it well. "Every pressing social and global issue of our time is a business opportunity."
In a recent survey, over two-thirds (68%) of the business leaders surveyed by IBM are focusing on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities to create new revenue streams. Over half (54%) believe their companies CSR activities are already giving them a competitive advantage over their top competitors.
That's why we are here and focused on sustainable communication. Within the arena of Media Workers, there are new business concerns, processes, technologies, products and strategic partners that are required to enable any company to win that competitive advantage.
The Green Media Show in Boston will feature all of the above. This newsletter can be a lens to help you focus on the journey.
Lisa Wellman, CEO, SustainCommWorld
| | Media's (Hidden) Energy Costs | Heightened awareness about climate change, rising energy costs and the increasing power requirements of IT are driving enterprises to pay closer attention to the energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions associated with their media production and IT infrastructure.
Print and digital communication media are both essential to business, government and everyday life, but they also both require the use of massive quantities of energy, petro- chemicals, materials and transportation that result in the emission of millions of tons of greenhouse gasses each year. Since it has been shown that the employing multiple media marketing touchpoints is far more effective than the use of any one medium alone and that this more closely represents a real-world scenario, identifying the environmental footprints of both print and digital media supply chains is an important first step toward developing strategies for the sustainable use of communication media.
Real Numbers tell the Real Story
Each year, almost 20 billion catalogs are mailed to American consumers. The energy used to produce just the paper required is enough to power 1.2 million homes for a year. This activity results in 5.2 million tons of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions - equivalent to the output of two million cars. In addition to their printed catalogs, the same marketers typically also maintain equivalent online catalogs. The amount of energy required to power the required data center servers, desktop computers and networks that make those sites function is far from trivial.
Based on typical energy consumption factors it is reasonable to assume that the average desktop computer connected to a server interacting with a client application results in the emission of approximately 20 milligrams of CO2 per second of usage. Multiply the number of visitors
to a site times the length of their visit and one can develop an estimate of the client and network related carbon footprint of a site or of a banner ad.
The upshot of these trends is that publishers, marketers, digital media and supply chain professionals will feel increasing pressure from investor and other stakeholders to analyze, offset and ultimatelyreduce the carbon footprints of the print AND digital media that they are
responsible for. At the very least they can expect to be asked for the total footprint of their multi-channel marketing campaigns.
To that end the nonprofit Institute for Sustainable Communication seeks support for its Sustainable Advertising Partnership Click Here in order to foster the development of a rigorous set of standards and guidelines for the calculation of print and digital media footprints as a first step toward ultimately reducing them by at least 10 million tons of CO2 emissions per year.
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| Peter Max Creates Poster for SustainCommWorld | 
With paintings on exhibition in hundreds of museums and galleries worldwide, Peter Max and his vibrant colors have become part of the fabric of contemporary culture. Max has been designated Official Artist of five Super Bowls, six Grammy Awards, World Cup USA, The World Series, the United Nations Earth Summit, and numerous other events.
Max's concerns for peace, the environment, human rights and animal rights, are as strong today as they have been throughout the years, often becoming the themes for his paintings. So we were thrilled to hear that Peter Max thought enough of the value of what we were doing to want to create a poster for our events.
SCW became involved in the process working with Peter's Studio to assure that the process of producing the poster would be as environmentally friendly as the poster depicted. This is truly a case of the "media IS the message." All attendees to The Business of Green Media Conference just held in California and The Green Media Show to be held in Boston this October will receive a copy of the poster.
We included a Colophon in the art so that all could understand how this work was created. It reads, "This poster was created with the highest regard for the environment from its conception. The environmental attributes are a collaborative effort of the Peter Max Studios, SustainCommWorld & EarthColor.
The paper is U2:XG from Appleton Coated - an FSC-certified sheet that contains 30% post-consumer recovered fiber and is manufactured elemental chlorine free with electricity in the form of renewable energy.
The inks are a product of INK Systems and contain zero VOC's and were cured without UV.
The product was printed by EarthColor in a carbon neutral location, using 100% green renewable wind power and sustainable manufacturing practices which include: green chemistry principles, recycling all residual materials and capturing VOC's from press wash via bio-oxidation."
| | Green Advertising Under a Magnifying Glass |
Last year corporations in the U.S. spent more than $54 million on carbon offset credits aligned with sales promotions, There's been a rapid run up in programs offering carbon offsets and the  public and the FTC (which regulates advertising claims) are becoming leery. And they should be. Many programs have been found to be little more than feel good hype. In the 24/7 always on age, this is not the time to be aligning your brand with bogus claims or programs.
Right now there's not a lot of consensus about what people are really getting for their offsets. Many companies are turning to relatively little known companies like TerraPass and non-profits like Carbonfund.org for help. Meanwhile the FTC is developing Green Guides of its own. Best advice now; unless you have a high degree of certainty about what you're getting, don't try to pitch it as high purpose. Rather, be candid with the market about your intentions and constantly be searching for an even better program.
| | You Should Know About: VOCs |
Almost any discussion of the environment and printing today involves VOCs. For those not actually working in the print shop, here's some background.
A Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) is any organic compound which, when released into the atmosphere, participates in the atmospheric photochemical reactions. Ground-level ozone is produced when nitrogen oxidises and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) react in the presence of sunlight. This is a major component of urban smog, which, at elevated levels, presents a potential health hazard to people of all ages and possibly damages vegetation and degraes the environment. It is for this reason that government legislation to control VOC emissions is being implemented in the US, Canada, Europe and other parts of the world. Printing inks and coatings used in the commercial graphic printing industry contain VOCs in varying amounts, depending on the type of ink, the drying and printing processes, substrates and end-use application requirements. In printing inks, essentially all weight loss, when the wet ink dries on the printed substrate is VOCs with the exception of water. Changes in printing ink technology and formulations are being driven by the desire to lower the levels of air pollution caused by the Graphic Arts Industry. Actually, while there are many causes of VOCs, the industry is being very aggressive and proactive in making the printing process significantly free of VOCs and their effects.
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Please share your information.
A valuable article, report or website can help all enhance our knowledge and make a difference in our industries and our communities. Send your input to terry@sustaincommworld.com.
|  Terry Wellman, Editor SustainCommWorld - The Green Media Showterry@ SustainCommWorld.com 206 275 9992 |
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