Book manufacturers: Going green

Adherence to these requirements has become easier as major suppliers, such as International Paper, have increased the number and range of their FSC-certified products. Also important to printers has been the efforts of equipment suppliers such as Hewlett-Packard to test FSC-approved and recycled papers in their machines. “Their own goal to be environmentally sensitive drives them to find papers that are FSC certified,” Parker says of Hewlett-Packard. “Even cover papers [for journals] have some recycled paper, so we find they give new purchasers of their equipment a leg up in being able to understand what paper can run on it.”

In addition to facilitating the use of FSC-certified and recycled paper, digital printing allows publishers to significantly reduce the amount of paper required in the first place. With as much as 40 percent of the paper used in offset printing wasted due to make-ready or overruns, and (according to one study by RIT) 30 percent of all traditionally printed material never consumed due to spoilage or obsolescence, the ability to utilize paperless proofing and print on demand technology can make a huge difference.

“Digital printing requires negligible amounts of paper spoilage for set-up and eliminates the need for over running extra copies as there is greater control over the variables that create these items in an offset environment,” Parker says. “Our clients can keep smaller or eliminate inventories of these products as print on demand technologies permits them to reprint their products quickly and cost effectively while reducing the stocking and carrying costs associated with conventional warehousing models.”

By recently deciding to convert all printing processes to digital, Odyssey has also reduced or eliminated the use of solvents and other production by-products associated with offset printing. Taking these efforts further, the publisher has begun to purchase carbon offsets, which subsidize solar, wind and hydropower in exchange for the company’s use of energy from coal-based sources.