This week you will get a chance to hear a little from each of the winners of the WhatTheyThink Environmental Innovation Awards winners in brief video interviews; one every day. The winners represent a very wide range of printers:

• Quad/Graphics, winner of the Environmental Sustainability and Your Plant award, is a huge ($2+ billion) commercial printer with more than 12,000 employees and multiple plants. Quad/Graphics is applying for LEED-certification for all their major existing buildings.
• Patient News Publishing, winner of the Environmental Sustainability and Your Community award, is a publisher with their own printing capabilities - in essence, an "in-plant' printer. They have 70 employees. Patient News is located in a tiny tourist town of Haliburton ON which has a permanent population of 5000 people. Patient  News doesn't sell any of their services to the local community, all their printed products are for companies outside their community.
• AllpakTrojan, winner of the Beyond Sustainability award, is a corrugated converter and commercial printer with about 300 employees. At AllpakTrojan about 1/3 of the employees take part in a company sponsored transportation program that includes bus and train passes, bicycle commuting, and 3 vans provided by King County free of charge for van pooling.
• Homewood Press, Toledo OH, winner of the Environmental Sustainability and your Processes award, is a small commercial printer with 30 employees. Homewood is the only printer (to my knowledge) that actually generates their own wind power; they have a 60-ft wind turbine.
• Spirit Graphics is a very small (7 employees), family run commercial printer, and winner of the Thought Leadership award. Spirit Graphics moved their print plant to a small town outside San Diego because all but one of their employees lives in that town, eliminating long commutes. The company also has worked with a local organization to hire people who have been incarcerated or who are recovering addicts.

We will be profiling each of our winners in the coming weeks. In our first profile, Packaging - Not Just a Pretty Face, you can read about AllpakTrojan and the company's envirionmental activities. A tip of the hat to our partners for this program, Unisource Worldwide. Their support made it possible to recognize these very deserving companies.