Carbon offsetting: making your print function environmentally sustainable

For many businesses, particularly publishers or direct mail firms, printing is their primary service offering, rather than solely used to facilitate office-based communications.

While smaller offices might utilise document management solutions to improve the efficiency of their printing function, printing firms need to identify environmental solutions which produce much larger carbon efficiency gains.

If your company requires large volumes of paper to operate effectively, carbon offsetting is a very good way of reducing the carbon impact of your activities.

What is carbon offsetting?

Offsetting allows companies to invest in projects which balance out the environmental impact of a particular business activity. A large print company that uses tonnes of paper pulp can take steps to ensure that they improve the environment in other ways; this might involve regenerating timber use through planting new trees.

Another way of reducing your footprint is by offsetting the impact of specific activities via one-off payments. While this is frequently used for business activities such as flights, with firms paying a supplementary fee to offset their emissions, as a printer firm, you can buy carbon credits, which work in much the same way. Companies can also choose to offset by investing in clean-energy projects all over the world.

Offset schemes vary widely in terms of their cost, though a typical fee might be around £8 for each ton of CO₂ offset. To put this in context, it would cost a typical family around £45 to neutralise a year's worth of gas and electricity use. Offsets can be bought from a number of providers, such as Carbon Neutral or Carbon Credit Trust, who will direct your investment towards suitable projects or facilitate the purchase of carbon credits.

A paper case in point

Print firm MCR calculated that the carbon impact of their Brighton office was 10 tonnes of carbon a year. They decided to offset these emissions, achieving carbon neutrality, through their Kikonda reforestation project in Uganda. More than one million trees have now been planted, storing more than 200,000 tonnes of CO². MCR also offers customers the opportunity to offset their print jobs on a project-by-project basis.

Other print firms, including Harlow Printing and Anchor Print also provide fund carbon offsetting projects or provide their customers with direct offsetting product packages.

Claims that some offset projects do not deliver on carbon reduction targets are now being countered; for example, several schemes now achieve their emissions targets ahead of tendering for investment. While some environmentalists claim that offsetting is counterintuitive, acting to reduce damage which should really be avoided at source, in reality it is better to act than to do nothing at all.

Accreditation

When looking for appropriate offsetting projects, look out for accreditation from the Voluntary Gold Standard (VGS) or Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS). These ensure that projects either work in accordance to rules stipulated within the Kyoto protocol, or demonstrate particular benefits to local communities.

Keep a record of your paper sourcing or risk a fine, says EU

The European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) came into action on March 3rd, requiring the majority of firms within the paper industry to keep accurate records of how they buy and sell paper.

It is hoped that this will allow the EU to more easily identify illegal source of timber and reduce the environmental impacts of paper production such as deforestation and loss of wildlife habitats across the globe.

Traditionally information regarding pulp and paper sources has been the remit of merchants and manufacturers. However, new European legislation could now see responsibility shift towards all aspects of the supply chain, including printers.

EUTR will require any company who uses timber-based products for commercial purposes to maintain a comprehensive record of their suppliers and sources. Companies who fail to do so will be hit with a £5,000 fine or a prison term of up to two years.

These Europe-wide regulations will supplement pre-existing FSC and PEFC sustainability certifications that currently exist in the UK. They will be implemented and enforced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the National Measurement Office (NMO).

This will form part of DEFRA’s Structural Reform Plan to "champion a reduction in emissions through lower deforestation and enhanced biodiversity". It is hoped that by reducing the demand for illegally harvested timber, it will become a less economically viable product across the EU, deflecting demand to more environmentally sound sources.

Under the rules, anyone regarded as an “operator” – a merchant placing timber products in the EU market for the first time – will be required to keep accurate records including: a description of the type of timber product, the species of timber used, the country and sub-region of harvest, the quantity brought imported and the names and addresses of suppliers and buyers.

As well as “operators”, the legislation will cover “traders” – anyone buying or selling timber products once they have reached the EU. The legislation will also apply to firms who source paper directly from non-EU suppliers.  Traders are only required to keep a record of who they bought the products from and who they were sold on to.

The EUTR will cover any firm sourcing and selling untouched paper, board and pulp products. It will not however, apply to companies who distribute pre-printed paper based products imported from overseas. For example, magazine or book distributors importing goods from overseas are not accountable.

The new requirements hope to add further traceability across the paper chain. Regulators will be able to monitor companies all across the industry and be able to work backwards from paper traders, identifying exactly where illegal produce was able to enter the market. Responsibility will be placed on “operators” to ensure that there is only “negligible risk” of this happening. 

Although suppliers who are already abiding by UK regulations should not involve a huge amount of more work, Liz Wilkes, head of European sustainability at Asia Pulp and Paper, says that many buyers will need time to adapt to the new regulations:

"I would hope that the printing industry would be given some time to meet the standards, because a lot of the marketplace isn’t aware of the legislation, let alone what is needed to meet it."

Anyone bound by the EUTR will have until 3 March 2018 to be fully compliant with the new regulations. However, by then it is expected that buyers and suppliers will have compiled a comprehensive five-year dossier of their buying and selling records.

If you are unsure of whether your business is covered by the new regulations them, please refer to the European Commission’s website.

Sustainable paper sourcing – the facts

Sustainable paper sourcing can help your business to become more environmentally aware and help the world economy to lower its environmental impacts.

The United Nations estimates that 17 million acres of rainforest are cut down every year, causing the degradation of ecosystems which for years have supported and developed thousands of different species of animals and plants.

Part of this, unfortunately, is attributed to the mass timber trade, and, more pertinently, the supply of the world’s paper.

However, by purchasing paper which is sourced from sustainable suppliers, we encourage the supply chain to adopt purely sustainable practices, shifting demand away from activities which reward illegal activity and cause the worst environmental damage.

But what does sustainable paper sourcing actually mean?

Sustainable paper is essentially sourced from forests which are sustainably managed and not involved in mass deforestation or poor environmental practices. Sustainable forests are managed in such a way to ensure long term social, economic and environmental benefits.  

Economic benefits will ensure that logging is not reducing the productive capacity of the forest through mass nutrient drain or large scale resource loss. Additional environmental precautions provide soil protection, biodiversity measures, maintenance of air and water quality, and aesthetics.

Sustainably developed forests will additionally look after the rights of labour and indigenous populations, the health and safety of forest workers, sharing economic benefits among the community and protecting of sites of historic value.

Deforestation also typically occurs when forest land is destroyed and converted to agricultural land, mining operations, settlements and transportation infrastructure. This might happen in developing nations when farmers want to cut down areas of forest to replace them with cattle ranches.

Areas of forest which have been removed by logging are often converted to house other crops, such as oil palm in Asia or sugar beets in the Amazon. While creating sustainable economic value, these completely change the nature of the local ecosystem, wiping out habitats. Sustainable foresting will ensure that regrowth balances the demands of the economy with the needs of the habitats they sustain.

Unmanaged logging also contributes to rises in carbon emissions because trees breathe in carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, removing it from the atmosphere. A sustainably managed forest landscape can be considered more carbon neutral if logging is balanced with re-growth of the forest through plantation:

"By one estimate, for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics," said the new New York Times in a thought provoking article.

One of the issues facing sourcing sustainable paper is that it can be difficult to trace exactly where wood has come from. Illegal logging has become one of the major talking points on the international forestry agenda over the past few years and a lot of work is being done to improve the traceability of produce.

Consequently, demand for legally-sourced wood and paper has increased globally, with changes in government legislation and business procurement policies driving change. Sustainable paper also includes a number of recycled varieties, allowing paper to be reused rather than being sourced directly from new trees.

Why not develop an environmental strategy for your business’ printing function? You can start by sourcing sustainable paper and then develop innovative paper saving processes which will reduce your overall paper consumption. If every business plays their part, then the world will clearly have a chance to maintain the ecosystems which play such a vital role in our global development.

Google paperless campaign reignites environmental debate

Google’s recent commitment to “go paperless in 2013” was an unhelpful attempt to champion digital media over print and divert attention away from its own environmental footprint, some within the print industry have argued.

By committing itself to the campaign alongside HelloSign, Manilla, Expensify, Xero and Fujitsu ScanSnato, many feel that the internet powerhouse has relayed an old and outdated message that paper use automatically equals environmental damage.

Consumers, constantly bombarded with “think before we print” messages, are now taught to think that printing, rather performing an effective medium of communication, is ultimately a bad thing, and is the direct cause of the reduction of rainforests and the damage to habitats which sustain life and endangered species.

Google, according to its critics, has conveniently positioned digital media, and itself, as the platform preferable to the environment, oversimplifying what is a complex debate, and in doing so has risked undermining what is an integral part of the global communications industry: 

"We all must do our part to respect the environment, but pitting one segment of the communications spectrum against another is not the right way to achieve this goal,” said Michael Makin, president and chief executive of Printing Industries of America, in an open letter to Google chief executive Larry Page and chairman Eric Schmidt.

Many feel that for too long, the print medium has had to accept its position as a whipping boy to the much trendier digital revolution, but in today’s economy, both digital and print mediums have their place, much the same as public transport and cars coexist to create a viable transport system:

 "How would your company feel if the almost 1 million direct workers in the printing industry encouraged their families and friends to go "Google-Less" in 2013? This is something to consider given that 67% of online searches are actually driven by offline messages," continued Mr Makin.

Over the years, an incredible amount of hard work has gone into developing sustainable paper sourcing and green printing processes within printing networks. To add weight to the injustice felt by the print industry, there is also growing opinion that digital media is a key contributor to global warming due to the significant amount of energy needed to support it. By 2020, Greenpeace estimates that global data centres used to support computer systems will use more electricity than France, Brazil, Canada and Germany combined. Google itself uses 2.3bn kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to power 207,000 US homes for 12 months.

The assertion that “going paperless” is the ultimate answer for businesses wanting to be environmentally responsible is therefore seen as being more than a little disingenuous. In order for both mediums to operate effectively, it is clearly necessary for both sides of the industry to collaborate, and develop campaigns which reflect well on both sides while getting to the root cause of the world’s environmental issues.

Image:Coolcaesar

EU throws weight behind self-regulatory 'green' printing measures

The European Commission has publicly backed a voluntary agreement by the world’s leading computer printer manufacturers in a bid to 'green' their industry.

Measures to reduce the carbon footprint of printing and copying throughout the EU have been met with encouragement. Targets covering the energy efficiency of devices, ink and paper use and the recycling of used devices and ink cartridges have also been outlined.

Manufacturers agreed to undertake measures such as the implementation of double-sided (duplex) and 'N-up' printing (many pages on one side of paper) in a bid to save on valuable resource.

Xerox is just one of many print manufacturers to have signed up to the agreement, including Brother, Canon, Dell, Epson Europe, Hewlett Packard, Konica Minolta, Kyocera Mita, Lexmark, Murata Machinery, Oki, Panasonic, Ricoh, Samsung, Sharp and Toshiba.

The Commission added: "The voluntary agreement has undergone a thorough impact assessment and we have concluded that it could be considered equivalent to binding regulations adopted under the EU’s 2009 Ecodesign Directive."

The EuroVAprint organisation has been formed by the printer manufacturers in a positive step to ensure their efforts can be individually and collectively monitored and evaluated by third parties.

William Dazy, chairman of EuroVAprint, said: "We welcome the Commission’s endorsement of our voluntary agreement in the context of the Ecodesign Directive.

"We are looking forward to further co-operation with the EU institutions in this area."

In the UK alone there are many firms who are now providing ‘greener’ printing and copying alternatives for businesses to adopt and reduce their carbon footprint. Document management solutions make it easy to create a digital library of information rather than resource-heavy paper-based filing systems.

Meanwhile Managed Print Services are designed to provide an optimum, holistic print environment for firms to maximise cost savings and allow companies to focus on their core business activities, doing what they do best.