SFN report: Green adoption is generally strong and growing

Posted by Erina Lin on June 8, 2010 at 4:40 PM

Around the world, newspapers are recognizing the value and promise for the future that is created by implementing a green strategy. The move to be more environmentally friendly is happening across businesses, consumers and governments. For their part, news publishers are taking a hard look at efficiencies that can be implemented across their value chains, such as more aggressive recycling schemes, reducing carbon dioxide emissions, lowering electricity usage and better ways of handling e-waste, SFN's Going Green reported.

InfoTrends, a U.S.-based market research and strategic consulting firm for the digital imaging and document solutions industry, partnered with the North American Publishing Company in January 2008 to create a new quarterly tracking programme called "Emerging Strategies in Production Print." The project is aimed at polling print service providers on the hottest industry topics.

Among those surveyed, most agreed that their company's management is very supportive of green issues, with an average response of 3.8 for in-plant respondents and 3.7 for print-for-pay respondents, on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), the study found.

When looking ahead, in-plant respondents leaned toward "agree" when asked whether going green will increase costs, with an average response of 3.5. For consumer print respondents, the average was 3.6. Because most believe costs will increase in the process of becoming more green, printers generally agree not enough tools are available to calculate a business' environmental impact, which could be a deterrent in implementing new green strategies.

Printers continue to push for ways to become more sustainable and build a greener business, which means vendors will also follow suit, finding ways to lessen the environmental impact of processes, states an article by InfoTrends, written for Printing Impressions magazine.

As a result of its findings, InfoTrends concludes that "on the whole, green adoption is strong and growing. It promotes social responsibility and can also carry marketing benefits. As more companies adopt green strategies, however, it will be more difficult for businesses to differentiate themselves in this way moving forward. Savvy marketers will become carbon-neutral, buy alternative fuels, and use environmentally-friendly consumables as they strive for further differentiation, according to the report, Going Green, released by SFN and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers.