Green Printing - The New Bottom Line
Author Anil K. Gupta said, "Strategy is the art and science of creating the future, managing the present and selectively forgetting the past."
Many forget that little over a century ago, when paper was primarily made from recycled rags, arguments raged about whether paper made from wood pulp was fit for use as a printing substrate.
Today over 3.5 million people are employed in the wood pulp, paper and paper converting industries worldwide. Book publishers are responsible for buying over 1 million tons of paper made from wood fiber each year.
That's a small slice of the more than 100 million tons of paper used annually in the United States. But environmentally responsible book publishers can have a big impact on the paper market.
Book publishers have power and influence disproportionately greater than the megatons of paper they employ. Books spark revolutions and inspire change. Book publishers have the power to enlighten, entertain and enrich society.
With this power and influence comes responsibility for thinking strategically about what the product—books—are made of. Such responsibility calls for strategies that balance the "triple bottom line" goals of economic prosperity, environmental quality and social justice.
This will require a new sensitivity to the interests of investors, customers, employees, suppliers, environmental groups, regulators and other stakeholders. It will also require new skills in life-cycle cost analysis and environmental accounting, and supply chain environmental management.
Over the past 30 years, the forestry and paper industries have made great strides in improving their environmental performance. Many have made significant commitments to sustainability's triple bottom line goals.
Driven by government, private-sector and voluntary initiatives, paper recovery rates nearly doubled from 23% in 1970 to 43% in 1999. Yet papermakers remain the third largest industrial user of fossil fuels, and the #1 industrial user of water per pound of product.
