At the start of 2010 I thought it was high-time to set out our environmental policy here at Carma Creative as we launch into a new decade of much eco-consciousness.
The trouble with that is – being a graphic designer – you are inevitably contributing to a highly polluting print industry (ranked at the 4th most polluting in the UK) mainly through high energy and chemical use, and associated waste.
So part of me wondered whether constructing an environmental policy would be in vain? I mean can anyone really brand themselves as a ‘green graphic design’ company?
There are some really interesting innovations happening within the world of print and especially with our local set. Most, if not all, now adopt the FSC chain of custody. Essentially this means that the paper they use to print with is sourced from wood in sustainably-managed forests.
Vegetable and soya based inks have long been the norm now, as the once cheap and plentiful petroleum inks have fallen out of favour. I’ve also witnessed some nifty things recently like waterless printing processes, solar energy generation for the presses, plans for water harvesting and plenty of movement on the ISO 14001 accreditation front.
But, of course, it’s not all about the print industry to which us graphic designers heavily contribute to. We try to encourage the use of recycled or sustainable paper stocks for our own customers, which must be our choice as to whether we actively promote this or not.
Reading through the environmental policies of other graphic designers it’s hard not to just regurgitate the same points and turn out something similar. I gave this some serious thought and here’s some of the things we are doing, as part of our ongoing effort to become more green…
- Ecotricity is now our electricity supplier, they spend a huge proportion of our bill on renewable energies, such as wind turbines. In fact they spend more on renewables than the six biggest energy companies in the UK put together.
- Ecotricity will also be supplying us with ‘green gas’ or biogas in early 2010. Currently their gas is the same as from other companies, but like their wind turbines, over the next few years they will be investing in building renewable sources of gas in the form of anaerobic digestion plants – so producing ‘green gas’.
- We recycle everything where possible, from mailing envelopes and jiffy bags, to paper and plastics.
- We are cutting down considerably on other consumables such as ink and will endeavour to re-use the cartridges as much as is possible.
- Future hardware, printers and phones, etc will be bought on the manufacturers environmental merit, based on Greenpeace’s independent ranking for this.
- We are working on reducing the amount of non-vital travel by using email, video conferencing and Skype communication as alternatives.
- We are sourcing local products and cleaning products again on environmental merit.
- We will continue to look at further energy-saving initiatives, like energy-saving light bulbs that we currently have installed.
- We will soon be moving to a Co-operative bank account, due to their great ethical policy concerning investment. This ensures our money will not be loaned to companies involved in the fur trade, arms dealers who supply oppressive regimes, or multi-national companies with poor environmental records.
Filed under: Uncategorized, ecotricity, environmental policy, fsc, graphic design, greenpeace, iso14001, printing
