Green Printing - The New Bottom Line
Executives and line managers need to be informed of best practices developed by groups like GEMI. They also need to familiarize themselves with guidelines and emerging standards for selection and rating of suppliers on the basis of environmental and social performance.
International environmental standards, such as the ISO's 1400I (ISO.org) and Global Performance and Reporting Initiatives (GRI.org), along with market-based emission trading schemes such as the Chicago Climate Exchange (ChicagoClimatEx.com) are gaining momentum.
As consumers become implicated, influenced, educated and interested in environmental performance, publishers need to lead the charge, or be ready to respond rapidly to new priorities.
Book publishers are among the most influential of all industries. Few industries wield comparable influence over how organizations, governments, children, teens, young adults and parents think about what matters in our world.
This influence demands strategies that balance the economic, environmental and social bottom lines. Ask your printer and paper suppliers how their companies measure, manage and report on environmental performance.
Ask how the environmental lifecycle impacts of their products and services. Ask how much time their CEO spends on environmental performance strategy. Ask if they reward operational and supply chain line managers who improve the firm's environmental and social performance.
Ask what they are doing to develop sustainable strategies for continuous improvement. Lastly, publishers must ask themselves if their bottom line priorities are based on smart, sustainable strategies, or a shortsighted view on near term profit.
If you're interested in new book substrate and printing technologies, or how to create business value by greening your supply chain, write to me at Carli@NimaHunter.com.
-Don Carli
Don Carli (Carli@NimaHunter.com) is president of Nima Hunter Inc., in New York.
