Donald Carli, Senior Research Fellow at The Institute for Sustainable Communication, responded to the recent post entitled Neutralizing Your Carbon Footprint, The Environment and the Printing Industry. His comments were very insightful. Here's an excerpt.

Print can and does play an important and effective role in a brand's advertising media mix, however, as currently produced it also results in millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production, distribution and fate of magazines, newspapers, freestanding inserts, direct mail, outdoor advertising and catalogs.

More digital media and less print is not the answer - responsible management of the print media lifecycle is.

Neither print nor digital media advertising as currently produced and managed are sustainable - but they can be if advertisers and their supply chain partners work together....