Print it any colour (as long as it’s green)
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Ten years ago, recycled paper was all the rage; the trouble was that it simply wasn’t ‘green’ - or at least it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. It was expensive, it cost more electricity to clean and recycle and it wasn’t necessarily environmentally sound, either in the processes used to produce it or the methods used to print on it. Ironically, the paper industry itself was always reasonably environmentally sound - virgin papers have nearly always been made from sustainable crops; it was the rest of the process that didn’t marry up.
These days, it’s much more joined up - accreditation like FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) and PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) have ensured that the process, as well as the paper itself, is ‘green’ - whether the paper is virgin, recycled or somewhere in between. It also means that to wear the badge you must be doing more than buying environmentally friendly paper, you must be joined up in the way you print. So many factors contribute to this approval process - the use of vegetable based inks, computer-to-plate (no film, no wasted silver), biodegradable laminating, water-based varnishes and - of course - environmentally friendly papers.
It’s interesting that the focus of attention has been on the forests, the printers and the print process itself rather than on the specifier which in this industry is more often than not the designer. It is we who recommend to our clients which paper stock to use and then specify that stock to the printer of choice. Often the client demands that the FSC logo be printed on their literature - sometimes to be part of the box ticking that is CSR, sometimes a genuine attempt to be green. But what is interesting is that little thought is given to the waste factor.
For instance, how often do we print more copies than we need, ‘because the run-on price is so cheap’? What do we do with all those unwanted brochures, magazines, newsletters - return them to the printers? No way, I can’t remember the last time someone asked us to dispose of their surplus unwanted print - so where does it go? Hopefully it is recycled.
Digital printing has allowed short run printing, in full colour, to become accessible to, and affordable by, everyone. As the price goes down, the quality goes up in line with technological improvements. We certainly are not litho printing the volumes we once were (who do you know who uses conventional letterheads any more, apart from IFAs and solicitors?). So in theory we are using less paper, though I know plenty of people who print out their emails to read later.
As graphic designers, we have a social responsibility to advise our clients to think green - to wait until they have six or eight people who want business cards rather than print one name at a time, to think about how many copies they actually need rather than order reams more than necessary. To even advise against printing at all if the better solution is to distribute the message electronically. However, even this can backfire - when I bought a new TV lately I had to print the 48pp instruction manual myself which cost me more in ink than the printer is worth.
With the current media attention on global warming, deforestation, sustainability, the acidity of the oceans, the melting of the ice caps, the storms, floods and the imbalance between what we use and what we produce, our focus on going green in the design and print business may seem a little over the top. But it is relevant, when you come to think of it.
