I’ve been on a two-year odyssey helping to clean up my father’s house. He’s lived alone now for two years and it was time to remove the umpteen boxes out of the basement and reclaim the closets. He and my mother were both hoarders. I found Valentines that were given to my mother from her students in 1954. They moved into the house in 1963.

On my latest trip home, I found an old timetable for the Metro line from 1984. If you happen to need any timetables, I know where you can get them dating all the way back to 1916. Seriously. What struck me was on the front of the timetable, was a message about how “green” Metro was.

The recent upturn in being environmentally conscious is itself, recycled. My friend’s mother for years cleaned out plastic butter containers and was called frugal and thrifty long before they became virtues rather than character flaws. I remember tying up the newspapers in the mid-1970s to put out for the recycling truck to pick up and stomping on aluminum cans in the late-1980s in order to fit more cans in the bin.

As a designer, I have noticed that each time there is renewed interest in the environmental movement, the first industry hit is printing. All that paper for catalogs and magazines and direct mail is such a waste. We must go digital and only send out emails and have a Website. And as much as I recycle (I even started the recycling program at work and own several grocery totes to minimize the plastic bags I use), I see a disconnect in the notion that print be an environmental hazard when it was made out of a natural substance.

Paper can be made from cotton, bark and most recently I discovered a paper made out of stone. Electronic gadgets (computers, phones, laptops, etc.) are made of a polymer substance derived from oil. In “Titan”, a biography about John D. Rockefeller, Sr., a point is made that from oil, we not only can make petroleum jelly, gasoline, and other fuel, but plastics that can form CDs, computer covers and even car parts. All of these eco-unfriendly items take a toll on the environment and the global population. In the remote regions of China, families spend their days extracting the copper from the wires and other circuitry from discarded televisions and computers. As their area has become a high-tech dumping ground, the local water supply is contaminated.

Many reputable paper manufacturers actually plant more trees than will be harvested for their factories. Instead of traditional inks, soy inks have been developed and improved over the years. Digital printing has vastly improved to the point where you can now print-on-demand. Marketing efforts can be acutely focused allowing you to segment your collateral to the intended audience and print in smaller quantities. If you want to hone in on soccer moms, print the brochure using images that relate to them. For the single man on the go, poof – change the image, but not the copy.

For one of our international clients, I found printers in each of their global locations to cut down on the emissions that would result from shipping all of the collateral from the United States. It just made better sense to spread out the print work to five printers rather than flood one and have skyrocketing shipping costs. While I am not sure the exact magnitude, I know that reduced our carbon footprint and provided work around the globe as well.

With paper, you have a tangible item to hold and read and connect with. In the goal to reduce emissions and carbon footprints and anything else that can be done to reduce global warming, we cannot devalue one industry in favor of another. With 1-1 printing, you can customize your print to the individual recipient. Once they are engaged, you add in the electronic conversation to keep a connection with them, provided your information is relevant and intriguing to them.

What is most important in marketing is to use the best vehicle for the best return possible. My 14 year-old niece hasn’t used email in over two years. My 83 year-old Aunt emails me weekly. Generalized demographics are not going to get your message across. Cross-marketing efforts will.

Don’t hesitate to include printing in your marketing efforts. The impact of something to hold and refer to is something that a computer screen can never match. We can print on paper and we can convert it into a planter and continue the green cycle and save our planet.

Susan DeAngelus
Art Director