In previous posts, I presented parts one and two of a transcript of a discursive but enlightening roundtable discussion held February 25 at Graphics of the Americas/FESPA Americas. Here is the third and final part of that discussion. The participants included: Moderator: Richard Romano, WhatTheyThink/Going Green Dave Breihof, Sales Manager, SignComp Giselle de la Moriniere, Marketing and Communications Manager, MGI Frazer Chesterman, Managing Director, FESPA—“In Europe, there is a similar amount of confusion and greenwashing as you have in the States.” Stephen Goddard, Environmental Leadership Program Manager, HP Graphic Solutions Business Paul Paulette, VP Sustainable Products, ConVerd Chris Thorne, General Manager, Graphics Division, Metafix Matt Foster, Director of Specialty Papers, Finch Paper Previously on The Green Roundtable: Frazer Chesterman: Do you think—just to finalize that—that there is a case for a “green summit” in our industry? Just on the basis that there’s a lot of best practices, people have stories to tell, so there’s that aspect of it, just sharing. And then there’s also the sense that if you created some sort of summit, it would actually draw people together and you get the ball rolling to develop some sort of standards. Paul Paulette: I think that’s really embraceable. I think that’s one of those things that people would like more clarity on. A shared pool of knowledge. FC: That’s what I’m thinking. And now, on The Green Roundtable: Dave Breihof: Conscientiously, I think we’d all like to do our part. There is a little bit of fear of cost, and once you open that door, is it Pandora’s box? What now is going to happen? As much as everyone would like to jump in and participate—like we are—are we doing the right thing? We always have that form of commitment with a question mark added to it. We’re not sure if we’re doing the right thing. A forum like that where everyone could start to share these ideas is where it has to begin because mandating that is difficult from industry to industry. I’m definitely the odd duck here as far as the digital side of it. But we’re all concerned, we just don’t know where to step up. PP: We have a unique situation...I think Europe, you really have NGPs that’ll bring this forward and codify it. Here in the U.S., we can still do it through trade associations because there doesn’t appear to be an organizational structure like exists in Europe for those organizations to put through a standard or best practices. FC: If there was an organization it would probably go through the EU [European Union], because the EU kind of joins together, in a slightly federal way— PP: Speaking from a nationalistic perspective, we try to keep the government out of it. FC: Understandably. PP: Because once you get the government involved, there’s a cost built upon a cost built upon a cost. So I would think that we would like to embrace what the EU has done in terms of best practices. But I think we prefer to be good custodians of our environment without involving governmental authority. DB: Something like the government recognizing that you’re doing the right thing is a lot better than the government telling you that “this is how you will do that.” FC: I’m not necessary saying that we need one overall governing body, but it should come from the industry. PP: Absolutely. DB: And I think you’d get a lot of participation. Chris Thorne: The Photo Marketing Association came out with a best practice policy about 10 years ago for the photo finishers. FC: Other examples exist, don’t they? CT: Oh, yeah. There was a complete manual for photo finishers. Now they’ve all gone digital, but back in the days when they were processing film and paper, there was a whole best practices policy that was put out by the Photo Marketing Association that said, “If you are processing film and paper, you should be doing this, this, this, and this, to control your waste stream.” They had recommendations, they had recommended technologies for taking care of the silver issue, for taking care of the pH issue, and so on and so on. And that was the standard. And it was recognized by the government as being an acceptable standard. So it’s just a matter of getting the associations together with peers in the industry and saying “What are the problems and what are the best way of handling these problems? And documenting it.” If the PMA can do it—and they were talking, back then, hundreds of thousands of small photo finishers...now with the consolidation in the printing industry, you’re not talking that many people anymore. So it shouldn’t be that difficult, I would think, to get everybody to agree on what the standard should be. PP [to Stephen Goddard]: In a company like HP, where you have a global perspective in virtually every one of your businesses, do you share, cross-continent, those best practices and make sure that the organization has a committed focus at the middle that you would be willing to share with a trade organization? Because I think your perspective is most valuable because of your reach. SG: Yes, and we try to do that. We talk to Frazer about the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership and what’s going on here in the States and in Europe. And how do we need to respond to that. So to an extent we certainly can cross-pollinate. What we can’t do is drive, because there’s no standard that will be credible driven by a company with a vested interest in the market. PP: That’s really the crux of our problem, that the people who are the leading edge of sustainability have to be careful not to drive their message home for fear of losing the value of the message itself. Richard Romano: That’s the real trouble isn’t it, once it ceases to become a competitive advantage, what’s the motivating factor for a lot of companies to do that? PP: That’s the challenge for trade associations, to be able to cull and pull and select the best philosophies or strategies to accommodate this without appearing to embrace one perspective. SG: The two advantages would be ultimately if you don’t meet a standard you will be negatively differentiated, and then also I come back to the idea of cost. If you can focus on things that reduce cost in your business, then you’re likely to be incentivized to take action as opposed to things which would lead you to bear additional costs. RR: Do you think it’s also important to stress that companies don’t necessarily have to jump into the whole green thing 100%. If they can do it step by step, or increment by increment...Because that’s a lot of what I have been hearing, that companies are overwhelmed by all of this stuff—you have to look at the entire lifecycle of your product, and do all this stuff. It just sort of blows their mind, like sensory overload. And there is a sense that any minor steps are just greenwashing—“Oh, they’re not serious”—even though they’re trying to do the right thing incrementally to the best of their ability. PP: I think it goes back to the concept of best practices. To do the prudent things that are going to sustain your business. It goes back to if you don’t do it, sooner or later it’s going to become a negative or a disadvantage to you in the marketplace. So incrementalism is probably the only way to go. SG: It’s not the only way. The other way of doing things is if you have a structure there in place. We talked about the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership certification, which for a print services provider provides them with a framework and steps that they need to go through in order to really look at their processes, and at the end of it they get a badge of honor they can take to their customers. And that’s a way they can take significant steps, but someone is there to hold their hand through the process. But in industries where that doesn’t exist, it can be very scary and you can go a step of a time and you face the problem that you’re [Dave Breihof] having, which is “am I doing the right thing?” And then what next, what impact am I having? And it’s more difficult to show your customers, and the world in general, about your commitment to the environment because you’ve got nothing to show the outside world. To tell the stories would take all these different steps. Matt Foster: This kind of goes to the next topic “Is green a destination or a journey?” It’s absolutely a journey. You’ve done all you can, feel good about it. As technologies advance and the opportunities to recapture, be more efficient, whatever it may be, you’ll take advantage of those things. One of the concerns I have is, is everyone doing it globally? We talk here about North America and Europe and we take great pride in the strides we’ve made over the past decade. But is China on board? Are the emerging countries on board with what we’re talking about? And until and unless they are— DB: And that’s the thing. We throw garbage in Lake Michigan and sooner or later it floats past New York and heads across the Atlantic. It’s a concern. We’re just little tiny Grand Rapids, Michigan, but we know sooner or later... That’s where ours [green initiatives] started. Let’s do what we can here and shut out the rest of the world because we’re doing out best here. But really as we grow, 20 years into this, how do we get other people to understand what we’re trying to think about? We’ve done that on our packaging side of it, because that’s the quickest way to get to everybody, and if we show them that we’re packaging correctly and recycling what we can, but even at that, is using a recycled package cost-efficient to the shipping? PP: It’s energy-efficient. DB: If it weighs more, it’s not energy-efficient. We don’t spend a lot of time on this, and we don’t start our meetings off on this, but it always comes up. Because there’s a lot of effort out there, when it all shakes out at the end of the month. All the guys [company employees], if everything goes the way it’s supposed to—and that’s an opinion, under our roof—they get pizza and that kind of stuff. We all sit around and laugh: how much did it cost to make the pizza, and the boxes? We laugh it off and move on but it really is the core of our ignorance. Are we really doing the right thing here? Hopefully they’re taking it home and they’ll pass it on, and it’s a small little impact, but we’re trying to make it where everyone understands what we’re trying. RR: Just the fact that you’re asking those questions I think suggests you’re doing the right thing. It’s just an issue of finalizing the details and getting more data about what the actual impact is. I think the real danger is just blowing it off entirely and not even bothering to try. So anyone who makes any step in that direction should be commended. And then it’s working out the details, really. DB: When you said earlier, do you have to take on the whole thing...it is absolutely amazing how easy it is to enforce that. Forgive me, but first you’ve got to be kind of a little prick right up front. “You will throw your plastic fork away, you will separate your garbage, you will do this.” But it’s amazing how fast even the guys I thought would waste their energy to go around the corner to throw it away just to get even [get on board with the initiative]. SG: One technique is something called life cycle assessment, where you can get consultants in to do these. And they have a structured process backed by ISO standards etc. for comparing two similar things. We actually use it to compare printing systems. If we print brochures using this kind of printing system, and we print brochures using that kind of printing system, what’s the impact? Certainly the first one you do in a given area really gives you some insights. For example, for us, we found that of the total environmental impact for our printing systems it’s all about the printing and the actual environmental impact of the manufacture of the printer is less than 1% over its lifetime. It’s all about the media you use, it all about the energy and the consumables you use. From that, we understand that it’s not worth trying to shave a few pounds off the weight of a printer. Anything you can do to save a little bit of media or a little bit of ink or cut the energy down, will really have a big impact. So it really helps you to direct your efforts. MF: Did you further compare inks and media individually? SG: We’ve done different types of studies, some for printing systems, some comparing media—so, for example  we’ve compared HTP-based media with PVC-based media and we found that the HTP media had a carbon footprint one-third that of the PVC media. So you can actually get some data that provides you with important insights. DB: We’re doing that. We feel like we’re under control with our knowledge in-house. And now we’re evaluating the trucking companies, and the mills we’re using—we’re trying to evaluate the people that supply us. “If we’re going to give you our hard-earned money, we’re asking that you take a couple of steps, or at least tell us what steps do you have in place and we’ll take the best of the best and if you’re cost-comparative, you’re going to win this project.” We’re trying to branch out a little bit. That’s really why I came to see what were other people doing. You guys are globally active, and we’re just a little manufacturing facility. RR: That’s where it starts, really. MF: One of the concerns I have is print and paper are losing business to China and other emerging [economies], parts of the world that have complete disregard for the environment, or even the wages that they pay their employees. There are ethics involved here as much as anything else. As we talk about industry roundtables and coming up with standards and best practices, we have FSC and SFI, but across the spectrum from raw materials to finished piece, what are the best practices, recognize them, and hold OEMs, paper companies, and printers, and whoever is involved, accountable to them. If you have complete disregard for sustainability and your footprint, to the extent that, “Why should I? Then I won’t grow my business and take market share from those who are ethical and are abiding by best practices.” The print buyers have got to say “No, we going to do business with those who will [be responsible].” SG: I think the thing you can do to help the industry in America the most is to raise the game, raise the level of standards in the industry. All the time there are more and more major brands who are making policy decisions that they won’t buy non-certified paper, for example. And the more we can help that process along, the better for the whole industry. MF: The print buyer has to do that. A good example is Victoria’s Secret— ForestEthics basically embarrassed them and they had to move toward post-consumer fiber or whatever it might be. [See, for example, here. —Ed.] But it was a major shift change for them. But ultimately it’s the end customer who is going to drive compliance and a recognition of ethics and do business with those people who are conscientious. SG: But those print buyers are very much looking for guidance from those around them, from suppliers, from NGOs, or whoever, and the more we can provide that guidance, and help to explain to them why this is important, and why they should be specifying only, for example, certified papers, the more we can move the industry on and protect it from negative perceptions. RR: The print buyer is very much caught in the middle between the rock and the hard lace, the rock being the printer and trying to navigate that relationship, and then the hard place is their own customers who are probably on the one hand saying “You have to use sustainable vendors for our project” and on the other hand “We only have so much budget for it.” You have to make all those sorts of tradeoffs. And they need the education as well. PP: I think Frazer was right when he started off earlier, and said that up until about six months ago green had taken a back seat. We saw it, we were out there trying to trumpet a message, and they’d say, “Okay, how much can you save me? If I’m going to be green, I want to know how much I’m going to save on this deal because I’m not gonna spend anything more. If I make a selection change, I want to spend less.” Some of that is now going away as a result of getting to the specifier, the print buyers, and part of it is the SGP program and there’s a lot of traction that with the Nikes, and the Reeboks, and the Pepsicos, who have said that we need to have a better perspective. That’s a new change and it’s based upon evolving world financial markets. As the economies improve worldwide, there is a better appreciation coming for going back in that direction. MF: It’s a moving target for the end user. If you go back historically into the early 70s, it was about pollution and recycling— RR: Right, the weeping Indian. MF: And then it went away, and when it came back it was the landfill and the concept of post-consumer came about. And that waned. And then it was save the tress. I think it’s arrived at the place where it’s a global footprint issue. It’s an impact issue. It all boils down to, as you said, educating the print buyer on making the right decision and offering them choices of how to do business. SG: And it’s certainly true that they want to pay the lowest price possible, but they want to pay the lowest price for what they regard as the minimal acceptable standard of product. And in the past, minimal acceptable standard has been defined in terms of quality, etc., but increasingly has been defined in terms of environmental as well. And the more we can drive up what is the minimum acceptable standard in environmental terms, the better. RR: In terms of cost, there is the usual economic game of chicken. You pay a premium for being sustainable in your printing because it’s such a small part of the market that you need to. And you need to get more people printing sustainably, and then the cost will come down. But until the cost comes down, you’re not going to be doing that, so it’s the vicious circle. How do you prime that pump and get the economies of scale going? MF: My point was that they’re going to Asia for low cost. They can’t just get away with that. And if they’re over there in Asia and they’re abiding by the environmental standard that we expect, and level the playing field, that’s fine. But I don’t like the idea of them escaping the additional costs of doing the right thing. But it’s not necessarily true. It’s not necessarily more costly to be green. It can be less costly. But if I can dump my effluent in the river without the cost of treating it first, yeah, I do save a cost there. But we have to hold ourselves accountable. CT: I run into that now when I deal with end users dumping their chemistry right down the drain. And I show them the environmental regulations for their city, and they say, “I’ll wait until I get caught.” SG: That’s why standards are so important. With the Sustainable Green Printing Partnership you have to be in compliance with your local regulations. So if you’re going to get that standard and show it to the Nikes and Reeboks, then you have to behave responsibly. The rest of the show beckoned, and our table broke up. But one thing that came out of this discussion that resonated with several of the roundtable members that I saw over the course of the rest of the day was the idea of some kind of industrywide “green summit.” Comments? I thank everyone who participated in this roundtable for taking time out of the typically busy trade show schedule to knock some of these ideas around. At future shows, we will attempt to have similar such roundtable discussions, especially as the sustainability issue rises closer to the fore.