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Natural Source Printing is a green printing company in Orange County, California. In this interview, I ask President Mary Loyer how she helps clients both be more eco-friendly in their marketing communications, in addition to her thoughts on what green printing is all about.
Additional Resources:
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John from Lunar Design interviews individuals involved in sustainable design at the Digging Deeper seminar on July 22nd, hosted by the San Francisco chapter of the Industrial Design Society of America.
You’ll see perspectives from designers, researchers, innovation consultants, and materials vendors in this 22min video.
Helpful Resources:
It’s a complex, multifaceted topic.
Modern forests are being ‘managed’ like crops, but environmentalists claim monocultures are bad. The Forest Stewardship Council is gaining prominence in certifying forests for paper companies to harvest. While their leadership is commendable, participation in their programs is voluntary (although fast becoming an excellent affiliation for marketing and CSR purposes). Another similar organization, but without nearly the same level of appeal and credibility, is the Sustainable Forestry Initiative.
Production uses a LOT of water and results in much air pollution/emissions. While printers/fabricators’ techniques obviously vary, they and their products can be FSC certified too. But their production volume is based on customer demand.
Examples of wasteful consumption can be seen through massive amounts of direct mail marketing (particularly in the U.S.), paper cups used only for 15 minutes, and office documents most of which don’t live beyond one day.
Recycling is nice, but how widespread is it? We’re looking at a systems design of separation, collection, separation, sales, and ??? (wherever it goes). For practical matters, let’s assume most of it goes to China like most other lower-grade scrapped resources around the world. Lastly, even recycled paper needs virgin fibers to maintain quality performance & appearance attributes desired by customers.
Here’s an 11min video from World Rainforest Movement on the paper industry. Most of the material seems reasonable and objective.
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First off, I must ask…What is up with Finland and their higher per capita consumption that the U.S.? Ah well, at least you get a basic idea of SOME issues involved in paper production & consumption now, hopefully to the point where it hasn’t spoiled your day. It’s not my interest to be all preachy to you and mandate using ceramic cups in the office, printing double-sided, or starting a paper collection bin. But I will advise you to do some data-scrubbing to your databases for direct mail purposes, and use some form of recycled paper for your interoffice and print marketing needs. My goal is creating awareness without making you feel burnt out and frustrated (which many environmental causes can tend to do) - but rather make you beam positivity and employ pragmatic action that affects your well-being and your bottom line.
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Gurminder Singh, the Co-Chairman of the Green Technology Institute at UCLA, assists US-based green, clean and environmental companies to explore and invest in India’s growing economy. In this brief discussion, he shares his thoughts on climate change and greenhouse gas sources.
Last week, my friend May Hsu asked me to help produce an 7min interview with Tom Stout, who we met up with at one of his recent home projects.
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Although the subject of green homes & gardens is fairly new to me, I did find the learning experience to be interesting. Secondly, I discovered that my wide angle lens attachment can tend to mess with auto-focus in small areas. Lastly I found that while the speakers did do an okay job, the initial topical run-through and rehearsal vastly improved the filming experience and kept the scope of the video in awareness.
You can see some beautiful garden design pictures and learn more about Tom’s business at StoutLandscape.com
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Sustainability Officers Working with Marketing Leaders - Sometimes sustainability leadership comes as an additional role for a marketing leader. But increasingly this position is being filled with qualified individuals from a technical background. This AdAge article discusses how these two roles can work together to properly communicate green objectives & accomplishments as part of a firm’s corporate social responsibility programs within a public relations & advertising context.
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Vehicle Eco-Calculator - Todd And and his team from Leopardo construction created this tool for management to use for considering the petrol efficiency and ecological impact of proposed vehicle purchases.
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Webinar for Sustainability Reporting 101 - Presented by Addison Communications, this free webinar on sustainability reporting may be worth your while. It’s on Wednesday 23 July, between 1-2pm U.S. EST (GMT+5).
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The Green Bottom Line for Consumers is First Personal - This article by the Hartman Group, a research firm, confirms similar findings about consumer interests as does Clorox and other firms: The personal realms are where people care about the most. Skip through the first 1/3 of this article and also see their great Body-World Continuum Graphic.
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Michael Pollen and What’s Wrong with Environmentalism - In this excellent interview with Yale University, Michael discusses sustainable agriculture, world commodity prices, a 3 prong solution, and some terrific insights that tie into the ’sustainability is personal’ topic within healthier living. Money quote: “your health is inseparable from the health of whole food chain that you’re a part of…there’s a direct connection between the health of the soil, the health of the plants, the health of the animals, and you as eater.”
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Nanotech & The Unknown Risks - This is a very promising field, which can help us design lighter and stronger materials among MANY other uses. But with all new technologies, we must be aware of social, economic, and environmental risks. This article also by Yale University sums up the concerns quite well. As paraphrased by writer Carole Bass, the raw materials of nanotech are most commonly carbon and metals like silver, iron, and titanium which at the nanoscale, take on new and unpredictable properties. This makes them versatile and valuable, but it also makes them potentially dangerous in ways that their larger-scale counterparts are not. Case studies, research, and the current state of affairs are given.
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Sustainable Print Marketing - The choice of paper is a great first step. Until I find or write further on this unique subject, I’ll just point you to New Leaf Paper as the best sheet supplier in North America. But these articles by ‘Notes on Design’ about Ink Considerations and Working with Printers, provide excellent introductions.
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Japanese Packaging Reduction Design - Very clever PingMag article with great pictures and stories. Features include Nissin’s Cup Noodles transition from polystyrene to paper, ‘Nobori’ shop banners turned into tote bags, and aluminum drink cans with concave-convex patterns that reduce material and improve grip (based on research by NASA).
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The State of LEED - While many are familiar with LEED building certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, this article by GOOD Magazine discusses the current state of affairs with LEED certification, some valid concerns, and how the guidelines will be revised in the Fall.
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Nanopaper and its Potential - This article by MIT Technology Review, discusses current R&D into making super strong paper fibers and weaving that results in a material stronger than cast iron and tougher than bone.
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Au Revoir !
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{UPDATE 7/15: Due to some recent concerns on a few of these videos, unfortunately every one except #2 and #32 will be temporarily removed. We live in the social media age and for a topic this important, I hope all these videos can be made publicly available for the educational community. Please leave a comment if you’d like to know when they’re available again. Merci mes belle Amis…}
A 10-Minute Highlight video of some sessions I filmed at a great conference I attended in early June: Sustainable Brands 08. All of these videos cover topics in marketing communications, product development, operations, human resources, and management. The camera may not be always perfect, but I tried my best to get the best audio and sharpest resolution. Rollover a link for a quick abstract. On each individual page, there is descriptive information below the video about the speaker(s), the presentation’s summary and analysis, and additionally related articles and resources for further learning.
If someone you know may benefit from the incredible educational value of these sessions, please send them a link to this page or one of the videos below. They are under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license, and may be downloaded and redistributed as appropriate. If you’d like to learn more about the process involved in producing & distributing video through online social media, please send me an email at: mvellandi [at] yahoo.com . ~ Adieu
{UPDATE: Thanks to the Universities that have taken interest in these video case studies. I hope they serve essential value to educators and students interested in responsible & ethical approaches to sustainability}
