How Environmentally Friendly is Print?
Over the last decade we have become much more aware of our impact on the planet. And with discussions on how to be more sustainable becoming a part of our daily lives, businesses are also changing their long-term plans to measure, then increase, sustainability.
At Webmart we are also constantly searching for sustainable solutions for our print and creative services and are at the cutting edge of sustainable marketing – with a range of ways to measure, mitigate and offset carbon (or equivalent) across print and other marketing services.
Sustainability in the print marketing industry has come a long way in the last decade and choosing offline marketing materials such as a door drop, direct mail, partially-address mail or programmatic mail can now have very little environmental impact if carried out correctly.
Online marketing isn’t carbon-free
Historically, when we thought of email and online marketing, we used to think there is no environmental cost attached. However the ICT industry typically generates greater carbon emissions than the automotive, aviation and energy industries and with AI now being commonplace, that carbon footprint is rising exponentially.
Similarly, email marketing was also viewed as an environmentally-friendly solution. However, over the course of its lifespan one 1mb email can emit 20g of CO2, whereas the production of 4 pages of paper with an envelope produces 25g.
Incredibly, if every person in the UK sends 1 less email per day, the reduced CO2 emissions would be equivalent to 811,522 flights to Madrid.
Of course, that isn’t to say online marketing is bad and offline is good, but the idea that by eliminating paper-based marketing will make your company environmentally-sound, is entirely incorrect. In fact, the best outcome for marketing campaigns is to integrate different channels – online and digital – especially as direct mail receives 4.4% more response rates on average, compared to email.
Combining channels and fuelling your campaigns with high quality, clean data will drive up response rates and ROI and reduce waste in terms of ensuring all your marketing communications (print and digital) only go to recipients who will actually receive them and are more responsive to your messaging.
Find a Sustainable Marketing, Print & Postage Company
And with Webmart’s EcoMetrics (environmental impact measurement suite) and Enviromail (our postage solution that offsets twice your carbon) we are ideally placed to help ensure your marketing campaigns really don’t cost the earth – in a very practical way.
Our bespoke tools show you the carbon footprint of all printed items. You can then decide whether you would like to offset the carbon through us.
Stick with PEFC, FSC®, or recycled paper
Deforestation is the second biggest source of greenhouse gasses after fossil fuel emissions and as a result, companies are encouraged to use materials taken from sustainable forests. The FSC and PEFC are both forest certification schemes, with some forest areas choosing to hold both types of certification.
There are more than 50 schemes, however the PEFC and FSC are the most recognisable. Choosing FSC or PEFC approved paper means that it will be coming from a sustainably managed forest, where a new tree is planted for each one felled.
Choosing recycled paper is another option to keep your printing eco-friendly. Currently 65% of direct mail in the UK comes from recycled resources.
The above are only a small number of green printing solutions, if you’d like tailored advice on eco-friendly printing, get in touch and one of our expert Webmarteers will be more than happy to help.
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