Being ‘Green’ Pays Dividends
‘Doing Well by Doing Good’
Wisconsin-based Quad/Graphics pursues a comprehensive conservation-based strategy of material use in the belief that it makes good business sense to do so. The company’s environmental activism dates from 1989, with an ink segregation project that saved the company $500,000 the first year it was implemented and changed its thinking about traditional cost centers.
In 1989, at Quad’s Pewaukee, WI, facility, waste ink was being generated at a clip of nine drums a month, which it viewed as a cost of doing business. In 2006, Pewaukee generated nine drums for the entire year. What occurred between 1989 and 2006?
According to Tom Estock, Quad/Graphics’ corporate environmental manager, “We challenged the pressmen to come up with alternative strategies to reduce the amount of waste ink. Ideas implemented included better ink estimating for specific print jobs, utilizing ink from one press to another press running similar jobs, and segregating ink by color in order to blend it into new ink.”
The waste ink program confirmed that environmental accountability could be a value-added component to the printer’s business and gave rise to what Estock terms “enlightened environmentalism” at Quad. “Reducing, reusing and recycling waste saves raw material expenses and disposal costs, and that is good for business and the environment,” he concludes.
Quad/Graphics takes a long view of the impact of its manufacturing processes on the environment and boasts an extensively integrated EMS that is focused as much on awareness and education as on resource efficiency. “We work to get these topics out to clients, prospective clients, employees and citizen stakeholder groups,” Estock says. “Whether it means using recyled paper or vegetable oil-based inks or paying attention to energy conservation, we believe in doing well by doing good.”
Quad’s three-legged stool approach to environmentalism relies on resource efficiency without compromising quality; strategic partnerships with local, state and national entities; and information sharing with its clients, suppliers and community. According to Estock, the company constantly fields requests from businesses and private citizens for environmental information and advice.
