Finally. Ecological meets Economical.

For the past six months, we’ve been working on a product catalog for a building supply & lumber company. To be honest, the thought of printing something this big makes me cringe. Like you I’m sure, we get dozens of printed catalogs in the mail every week and I feel guilty just looking at them. Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but once you understand the impact that even a single product catalog like this one has on the environment (above and beyond the number of trees you’re killing) the math is difficult to ignore. Skip to the math. »

Throughout the product catalog planning and design process, we’ve helped our client make decisions to minimize the impact that this catalog will have on the environment. Here’s how:

1. Offer a downloadable PDF version of the catalog.
To minimize the number of printed copies, this catalog will be available to download and search online. Another perk of the online version of the catalog, compared to it’s printed counterpart, is that it can be updated with current prices and product updates in near real time.

2. Develop an eCommerce shopping website
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Who doesn’t shop online these days? Even if you’re one of the few that doesn’t trust the security of online transactions, the convenience of browsing and comparative shopping online is undeniable. So, the second phase of this project will be to launch an eCommerce Website to display and sell building related products online. All of the products in the printed and downloadable version of the catalog were populated with a live feed from one central product database that allows real-time changes to the eCommerce website.

3. Use sustainable materials
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As much as I’d like to think that we live in a digital, paperless world…until everyone carries an iPad, Kindle or the upcoming Android Tablet, paper will be a necessary evil in some industries. In the case of our client, they sell building supplies to home builders and contractors who spend most of their time on a job site or in their truck between job sites. So printing a limited run of the catalog was economically unavoidable. But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t minimize the catalog’s environmental footprint. So we did.

Here’s how:
With the guidance of Shaugnessy Kniep Hawe in Plainfield, Indiana, we chose the most economical and most ecologically sustainable papers available to give us the highest quality printing possible. As a result:

• 30% of the catalog was printed on Domtar Cougar® paper, which is Certified by the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) and endorsed by the Rainforest Alliance. With 10% post consumer recycled content and certified fiber, plus the fact that it prints beautifully, Cougar was a smart choice.
• The remaining 70% of the catalog is printed on Rolland Enviro 100, a paper made from 100% post-consumer waste. It is processed without the use of chlorine and then manufactured using 100% biogas energy.

What is Biogas you ask? Well, biogas comes from the decomposition of waste buried in landfill sites. It was captured and then transported by pipeline over a distance of 13 kilometers (.62 miles) to a paper mill in Canada. The biogas was burned to produce steam which in turn produces energy for the manufacturing process. And, when methane is burned it’s turned into C02, which is 21 times less harmful to the atmosphere than the raw methane. Pretty cool.

Printed with Wind Power
Among its other sustainable initiatives, Quality Printing in Anderson, Indiana is powered with wind energy from Community Energy.

Here’s the best part
According to the Environmental Defense Fund, our choice to use environmentally sustainable paper for this catalog, instead of an equivalent virgin fiber paper saved 61 trees + over 40,000 gallons of water + 13,000 pounds of air emissions + 5,000 lbs of solid waste. Plus, the 100% PC paper was 18% cheaper than printing the entire catalog with the 10% post consumer paper.

Finally, using environmentally-friendly paper is not only economically feasible —it’s economically advantageous.