The Survey Says. . . Emerging Green Strategies

IN JANUARY 2008, InfoTrends and North American Publishing Co. (NAPCO) formed a unique partnership, combining PRINTING IMPRESSIONS' large subscription base with InfoTrends' in-depth research tools. The result is a new quar- terly tracking program called "Emerging Strategies in Production Print," aimed at polling print service providers on some of today's hottest industry topics.

To kick off our inaugural survey, we chose a topic that has been gaining a lot of recognition over the past year: "green" printing and sustainability. With many buzz words and views being tossed around by industry leaders, we decided it was time to check the pulse of the industry itself to get its view on the subject and see how it is adapting to rapidly changing trends.

The survey was conducted to gain a better understanding of emerging green print adoption and strategies in print production environments. InfoTrends explored print-for-pay businesses, as well as in-plant trends, and used NAPCO as a resource to reach more than 400 print-for-pay companies and more than 200 in-plant locations.

While this article only focuses on the results of our print-for-pay respondents, the full report (including the full range of results for both print-for-pay and in-plant environments) is available on InfoTrends' Reports Store at http://store.info-trendsresearch.com , as well as PRINTING IMPRESSIONS' Bookstore at www.piworld.com/bookstore .

Key Findings/Analysis

Setting out to examine the reach of green initiatives in the graphic arts industry, we wanted to see how many print service providers were in motion and creating a more sustainable workplace. Asking if companies had taken any steps to become more environmentally friendly, we found that more than half of the providers surveyed had implemented some form of green policy. Furthermore, we noted that nearly one-third of those with these policies in place have also completed one or more certification programs.

(See Figure 1.)