Tactics > the Green Issue


the highest virgin fibre products. The range can be sourced in various levels of recycled content, ranging from 50 to 100 percent recycled and the substance range is between 90 to 350gsm. Whilst the majority of the range is coated


papers offering high grade four-colour print performance, an uncoated product has also been developed recently to serve the increasingly popular use of this type of paper. Uncoated grades, when used within catalogue production, can offer a high visual impact and tactile feel. The product is currently available from 70 to 150gsm. Industry studies of the ecological balance of


producing paper from both virgin and recycled sources have provided some interesting findings. For example, within the LWC sector, it has been demonstrated that the ecological savings generated by recycled LWC products may be quite significant. It is estimated that the production of LWC recycled paper requires in the region of 50 percent less energy, 40 percent less water and potentially a significant saving in carbon dioxide emissions.


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Mail smarter. Being smarter with mailing data is fundamentally important in reducing waste and improving response. To do this, you


first hone the “soft” skills of acquiring details of those who are going to be most attracted to your offering. Second, you sharpen the technical skills required to ensure that the data you have is as clean and effective as possible. Soft criteria—choosing the most appropriate


list is a vital skill, one of the most cost-effective ways is via list swaps where you can offer your existing housefile to another cataloguer whose customers you believe would be interested in your products. Rigorously test a small, statistically valid element and if it works you can roll it out. Ask your swap partner who else it successfully swaps with and you can develop a network of suitable partners. Another tip is to always start with your most recent 0-6 month multibuyers, as this will help keep your data as clean as possible. Remember to ensure that you deduplicate the data as it is inevitable that enthusiastic mail order buyers will appear on multiple lists. With swaps, you are, of course, limited to the size of your own list so you will also need to contact cooperative databases which will be able to recommend suitable lists given your ideal customer profile. Hard criteria—a database is only as good as


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the data you put into it. It goes without saying therefore, that it is important for the data to be as clean as possible. For optimised results, the data should be compared with national databases such as the National Change of Address (NCOA), to find forwarding addresses for movers; Postcode Address File (PAF), used to make sure addresses are correct against the Royal Mail database; goneaways lists for consumers who have moved with no forwarding address, and against suppression databases of deceased individuals. Finally, don’t forget to get the data deduplicated to remove any multiple names or addresses before Mailsorting the data to obtain maximum postal discounts.


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Keep transport to a minimum. All of us want to use products that are locally produced wherever possible. However, there are certain papers that


are only produced in mainland Europe, for example, LWC gravure. It is for items like this that planned logistics can make a significant difference to transport energy consumption and its attendant pollution. Take for instance 60gsm standard LWC; it can be produced at either Norske Skog’s Walsum mill or at Stora Enso’s Kabel mill in Germany and shipped to either Circle’s Charleroi plant in Belgium, Roto Smeets Deventer plant in the Netherlands or TSB’s Monchengladbach plant in Germany, all of which are on almost direct routes to the channel ports. So with a minimum of planning you have a choice of substrate supply and a printer without any unnecessary transport.


a very popular and important process, it is undeniable that the substantial energy input required for drying and the exhaust gases produced in addition to the high proportion of mineral oil content in the ink (due to drying requirements), make the process less sustainable—particularly when allied to the inevitable higher levels of paper wastage inherent in the process. While vegetable oil content inks are available for heatset web offset there are both quality and cost considerations as they are more expensive than conventional inks. More important, however, the colour intensity of the inks when printed and dried is less than mineral oil-based inks. If you are using them, there is an argument that says that 97 percent of toluene, a product used in mineral oil-based gravure inks, is recovered during the low-temperature drying process. Condensed and reused, it is a more sustainable process than heatset web offset, particularly since there is less paper wastage due to the benefits of variable cylinder circumference and therefore paper cut-off.


Guaranteeing use of


sustainably produced paper can be achieved by obtaining chain-of-custody certification that provides a fully audited trail from tree to finished product.


7 Catalogue e-business www.catalog-biz.com


Eco-friendly inks. Vegetable oil based inks are now pretty much standard within the sheetfed industry. This means the vast majority of printers,


particularly the larger ones, running B1 long perfectors equipped with “Cut Stars” consuming more ink, should be able to confirm the exact makeup of their house-standard process inks. While heatset web offset is still


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Mail naked. By adhering to the criteria set out by Royal Mail for sustainable mail, you can achieve postal savings of £10 per thousand copies and benefit


the environment by not consuming oil-based polythene wraps by mailing out unwrapped. Basic criteria briefly are: Paper mill, printer and mailing house to have ISO 14001 accreditation Paper to be certified FSC or PEFC or contain a percentage of recycled fibre from recovered waste using nonchlorine bleaching


Ink coverage less than 90 percent Address data cleansing including against the Mailing Preference Service (MPS).


Environmentally friendly poly. If it is not possible to mail your catalogue unwrapped, then an option to use Oxolife degradable flexene means that


although it is still an oil-based product, once used and disposed of it does not persist in the environment as due to a specific extruding technique, the film literally breaks down into its component parts and “disappears”. Clearly this is not a product that you can have in stock for any length of time—complete degradation takes approximately 12 months—but at a marginal additional cost of less than £1 per thousand A5 wraps, it is a small price to pay to not have film hung in trees and bushes by the roadside, or, worse still, getting into water courses and damaging wildlife.


10 sensitively.


John Petty is managing director of print management consultancy JPS Limited.


Recycle. Always have a clear recommendation in a prominent position to recycle or, at the very least, dispose of your catalogue


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