The Inspired Economist

If you want to “green” your news reading, just go online, right? Ditch that dirty, landfill-clogging paper. Not so fast, argues Sarah Westervelt, environmental expert and activist. In a recent article on The Dead Tree Edition, Westervelt said that she was “too informed about what’s going to happen to my computer when I’m done with it” to feel good about reading Web news and gave a number of compelling reasons that newspapers are actually the greener choice.

Among her reasons for rejecting e-news, as reported by The Dead Tree Edition, the toxic materials contained in electronic devices and a complex waste cycle (including more than a dozen plastics in each), combined with not enough value in re-use to make recycling the parts non-economical. Paper, on the other hand, comes from a renewable resource, doesn’t contain the toxic materials, and is highly recyclable.

The post is a great read, and it certainly makes you think about the consequences of our wired world. (Some of the arguments that have been made against Apple’s new iPad.)

At the same time — and while I cannot disagree with Westervelt’s facts — this argument really only works if it’s an either-or proposition. Read the rest of this entry »

When we think about greening “print,” we often think about books or marketing communications like direct mail. But what about the world of packaging? Because packaging provides the additional functions of shipment and product protection as well as marketing, it brings a host of unique issues far beyond other types of printed materials.

Plus, it’s on the verge of being regulated.

Multichannel Merchant recently noted that regulations such as PAS 2050 (developed in the U.K.) limit, among other things, the impact of packaging on carbon emissions throughout the product lifecycle. The World Resources Institute is now reviewing how to leverage PAS 2050 for the U.S.

This matters so much because “green” packaging is more than about using recycled or earth-friendly materials in the packaging itself. It’s about the entire packaging lifecycle, including distribution and disposal.

For example, have you thought about what happens when packaging doesn’t properly protect the product? Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the time of year when people are making resolutions to lose weight, better manage their finances, better manage their anger, and myriad other things. Is increasing your commitment to environmental sustainability on that list?

As I wrote in my very first post for The Inspired Economist in the fall of 2008, the neat thing about committing to environmental sustainability is that you don’t have to make extreme changes to make a difference. You don’t have to install hemp carpet in the office or replace your roof with solar panels.

If we all make small incremental changes, the difference will be exponential. It’s a lot easier to get a lot of people to make small changes than to rely on a few people to carry the entire load.

What small, incremental changes can you pledge to make this year? Here are a few ideas. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you like to play with online tools? I do. I like environmental calculators. It’s fun to plug in a bunch of numbers and see what you come up with.

Take environmental calculators offered by paper companies. Want to know how much you can green your print marketing just by making a simple switch? They’ll tell you. With a few clicks, they’ll tell you how much you can save in water, trees, landfill waste, BTUs of energy, and more simply by switching from virgin to a variety of other stocks with postconsumer waste (PCW) content.

What’s incredible is how little it takes to make a huge difference. Simply by increasing your PCW content from, say, 10% to 25%, you can actually decrease your carbon footprint by thousands of percent. For example, using the environmental calculator from Wausau Paper (500 sheets of 8.5 x 11″ with 10% PCW content), I could save the following: Read the rest of this entry »

Can you green your business for free? With the right qualifiers, you might. There is at least one company that will take a comprehensive look at your organization, project out the amount of money it can save on your electric bill by installing greener technologies, and outfit you — free — on a contingency basis and through performance contracts.

Certainly, there are other companies offering similar services. For this reason, this post is not intended as an advertisement for this particular company, but I will use it as an illustration of this business model. If there are other companies offering savings-based energy services, please let me know and I’ll compile a list for a future post.

Here’s how the process works: Read the rest of this entry »

As climate change legislation makes its way through Congress and stakeholders increase pressure on businesses and government to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, AltaTerra Research will be hosting the web conference “Carbon Footprint Reduction for the Long Haul.” This event will be held Thursday, December 3rd at 10 a.m. PST / 1 p.m. EST and will feature a case study of carbon management software implementation by the City of Palo Alto, California.

From the experience of the City of Palo Alto, participants will gain independent, real-world information on how to approach and plan for implementation of a carbon management system. Karl Van Orsdol, sustainability leader and energy risk manager for the City of Palo Alto, will describe the city’s recent experience implementing carbon management software (from Hara Software, Inc), including a discussion of target reduction goals, motivating factors, system selection and implementation, new processes and organizational responsibilities, key challenges, and achievement of $300-600,000 in annual cost savings.

For a broader look at carbon management information systems as a rapidly emerging solution class, Don Bray, president of AltaTerra Research will provide background analysis on business drivers, concepts, practices and system capabilities. “Palo Alto’s experience demonstrates that manually gathering baseline information and using spreadsheets to calculate and track results is not sustainable,” said Mr. Bray. “Achieving meaningful, long-term reductions in resource use, emissions, and associated dollars requires new processes, tools, and operating responsibilities.”

Further information and registration for the event are available by clicking here.

Like this post? See all my “Greening Print Marketing” posts.

Image: Courtesy of The Stock Exchange (image uploaded by hisks) 

I’ve written a lot in these posts about print vs. electronic media and the sustainability issues faced by both (yes, both! electronic media aren’t as green as people think). Now you can investigate more deeply for yourself. On November 17, Target Marketing and Printing Impressions will offer a webinar titled “Paper or Electronic? The Impact of Choices.”

Speakers will be:

Don Carli
Senior Research Fellow
Institute for Sustainable Communications

Brian Kozlowski
Director, Sustainable Development
NewPage Corp.

This free webinar will discuss the tools, processes, and success stories that exist to help direct marketers determine not only which media best fit the job at hand but also how to improve the carbon footprint of all channels.

Topics to be discussed include:

Read the rest of this entry »

Did you notice something different on the back pages of The Order of the Phoenix? If you live in the Canadian market, you might. The fifth book in the Harry Potter series has something unusual on its back pages. It’s an environmental audit.

The audit, produced using New Leaf Paper’s Eco Audit Calculator, uses New Leaf EcoBook paper, which uses 100% postconsumer waste. This is something new in the book market, which is normally so sensitive to price.

While the paper does cost more than virgin, these costs are offset by the extreme environmental benefits of switching to paper made with 100% postconsumer fiber. Because virgin paper costs less than recycled papers, the book industry has traditionally gone almost exclusively with virgin stocks. But Scholastic decided to make an environmental statement — a big one.

According to the audit, on the 950,000 print run, this simple switch resulted in a savings of 29,600 trees, 12.4 million gallons of water, 20,300 BTUs of energy, 1.4 million pounds of solid waste, and 2.7 million pounds of greenhouse gases. That’s more than just a drop in the bucket.

Read the rest of this entry »

Companies marketing green products and, in particular, promoting their green energy initiatives are using words like “energy conservation” and “green energy,” but what effect has this had on consumers? Do they care? Do they even understand what these terms mean?

EcoAlign, a strategic marketing agency focused on energy and the environment, decided to find out. In September, it conducted 1,000 interviews, comparing against a similar survey conducted in September 2007. The sample was balanced to match the U.S. population by age, gender, region and ethnicity.

The results? Green Align found that consumers generally have positive associations with the terms “energy efficiency,” “energy conservation” and “clean energy,” but their understanding of what these terms mean has remained the same or decreased since 2007.

They also have low or negative understanding about technical terms such as “demand response” (resulting in the recommendation that such terminology not be used in external marketing communications) and showed a lot of confusion about green pricing terminology such as “peak pricing,” “green pricing,” and “fuel supply pricing.”

Moreover, consumers remain confused about the definitions of basic terms. They cannot articulate the difference between energy conservation, energy efficiency and smart energy. Less than one third chose the correct definition for those terms from among a selection of definitions (multiple choices).

Read the rest of this entry »

By its acquisition of ScanWind, GE is incorporating combined European and American wind energy technology. In 2004 Finnish Arctic Wind Power contracted Norwegian ScanWind to supply gearless permanent magnet wind generators originally developed by German Siemens. It was imperative that these generators be highly reliable and require little maintenance in harsh environments.

Gearless generators were chosen since they offer high reliability especially in harsh environments. They also provide a higher efficiency converting rotational energy into electrical since the friction of a gear train is eliminated.

Read the rest of this entry »