Graves Fowler Creative

As a design firm, we spend much of our workday helping clients make decisions about producing communications. We’re responsible for putting mountains of paper into circulation. We fill your wallets with business cards, your file drawers with valuable and well-designed (of course!) reference materials, your shelves with beautiful publications — and we fill your recycling bins and wastebaskets.

We’re creating great solutions for our clients on one hand but adding to environmental woes on the other. As a result, our Graves Fowler team sat down and talked about what kind of practical advice we could offer you—advice that wouldn’t undercut your need to reach your target audiences, that would be easy to do and that could help us all be a shade greener. Here’s what came out of that conversation.

1. Be conservative in the quantities you order, or consider print-on-demand options. We’ve historically encouraged clients to print more because once a job is on press, the additional cost is mostly in paper. For example, if you know you need 2,500 copies of a brochure, printing 3,500 isn’t that much more and brings the cost per piece way down. That approach used to make a great deal of sense. But  how many of us have wound up with boxes of unused materials that take up shelf space, go out of date and wind up being tossed out? The print-on-demand option is much more friendly to our environment, and technology is making it economically smart, too.
2. Use a new mix of communications to reach your constituents. Instead of investing so much in hard copies of event registrations, fundraising appeals, newsletters, even annual reports, you can easily put them online. We receive, assimilate and expect information to arrive in new ways now. You’ll still need some carefully chosen print materials, and the quality archival publications will always hold special value. The point is that we have more options than ever. Throwing paper at a communication need isn’t always the best solution.
3. Stop printing out downloads and emails. Kind of defeats the purpose, right? I’m learning to be choosey about what I have to hold in my hands. For the information I just have to have as hard copy, I’m running the paper from my laser printer through twice, using both sides of the sheets before they land in the recycle bin.
4. Expect your creative firm to help you make good choices. Ask for paper, ink and print vendor guidance that fits your commitment to the environment. The list of printers who are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI) is growing rapidly. These are printers who meet rigorous standards for environmental practices and purchases. Paper-buying decisions today are more complex than just choosing recycled paper. The good news is that we don’t have to figure all the nuances out by ourselves. However, we do have to make these options a priority, not an afterthought, in planning and sending out requests for estimates.
5. It’s good PR to include an “eco-audit” in the materials you do print. What’s an eco-audit? FSC certified printers can run the numbers on how many trees, gallons of water, etc. have been saved by your eco-friendly printing. This appears as a small boilerplate on your publications and demonstrates that you have made the environment a priority in your communications program.

None of these ideas require a huge shift in the way we do business with each other, but they’ll make a big difference in the number of trips our cleaning companies make to the dumpster on Friday nights.