Honoring Earth Day 2008
Green Week at WhatTheyThink.com
See more green week articles and videos
WhatTheyThink Turns Green
By Gail Nickel-Kailing, Senior Editor
April 24th, 2008 - For Earth Week WhatTheyThink.com rolled out the green carpet! News announcements, special research and reports, videos, and webinars all carried a green theme and a new special interest section - Going Green – was launched.
Readers of WhatTheyThink’s Going Green – Environment and Sustainability section will find a wide range of articles and resources to assist them as they move ahead with strategies to become more environmentally friendly, to run more sustainable businesses, and to add products and services that will support their customers’ “green strategies.”
Articles and Commentary
Central to the section is a series of articles and commentary looking at how our industry and other industries are implementing programs and initiatives that increase recycling, improve energy efficiency, and eliminate waste and more.
Just a few of the topics on the site this week are:
- Was the New York Times Magazine “Green Issue” one green issue too many? Advertisers loved it, the “eco-conscious” were likely to cringe.
- How the green initiatives Macy’s and Wal-Mart have launched can provide an opportunity for their print service providers to open a dialog to market “green printing” services.
- “Home-grown” programs to educate and motivate customers developed by Delta Printing Solutions, Valencia CA, a printer, and Phoenix Media Direct, Coquitlam, BC, a paper merchant. These “Reduce – Reuse – Recycle” programs are intended to slow down the waste that ends up in landfills.
- One of the original environmental certifications launched in 1997. The Printing Industries of Minnesota has offered the Great Printer Environmental Initiative for more than a decade.
- An examination of HP’s 2007 Global Citizenship Report revealed that the company is on track to move 80% of its general office printing and copying to double-sided printing by the end of 2008, which is expected to save 726 tonnes (a tonne is 1000 kilogramss) of paper a year. And that’s just one of the initiatives.
Resources
Readers will find a special selection of resources including an Events list of upcoming “green” events, both inside the printing industry and across other industries.
Events outside the printing industry have been chosen for areas of “convergence.” For example, the upcoming Greener by Design 08 symposium announced a wide range of speakers including Patricia Calkins, VP Sustainability, Xerox; Jean Sweeney, VP Environmental, Health and Safety, 3M; and Anne Johnson, Director, Sustainable Packaging Coalition.
An ever-changing list of links to Useful Websites, provides links to a wide range of organizations providing education and support, and will be very helpful for companies looking at certifications or other environmental programs.
Under the heading of Resources one can find an offering of Reports, Papers, and Studies; some are free to be downloaded, some have a price tag attached. These documents also come from a wide net of sources, such as WhatTheyThink’s own staff, other research organizations, vendors, and subscribers.
Don’t miss the Reading List! There readers will find books of interest – and short “reviews” – chosen to support, educate, and challenge.
Going Green Weekly Newsletter
To stay current on all “Going Green” articles and resources, sign up for the weekly newsletter, delivered every Friday. The first issue will be distributed May 2. Sign up here
Click here to visit "Going Green"
Gail Nickel-Kailing is a senior marketing and strategic planning consultant experienced in marketing technology-based solutions and services. She provides business counsel and marketing assistance to companies seeking to increase profits and revenues and reduce costs through business process improvement and implementation of information or workflow management systems. Through Business Strategies Etc. she offers services such as marketing planning and management, business and product development, and other support services for national and international clients.
Representative projects include:
· Development of channel marketing and collateral distribution programs incorporating electronic and print-on-demand documents as well as traditionally printed promotional materials and direct mail, for manufacturers offering a wide range of products, including commercial exterior lighting, recreational vehicles, water treatment products, and others.
· Detailed mail systems analyses resulting in recommendations for operational and procedural improvements to capture cost savings completed for companies in the following industries: insurance, banking, catalog and direct mail, specialty printing, and government.
Gail has also held executive positions in companies such as Printable Technologies, Firstlogic (formerly known as Postalsoft and recently acquired by Business Objects), CAPVentures (now InfoTrends) and ImageX, a provider of B2B print procurement software and services (acquired by FedExKinko's in 2003)
Ms. Nickel-Kailing is also an author, journalist, and nationally recognized speaker regarding printing and mailing, including web-to-print, variable data printing, and direct mail. She is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire WI. She can be reached at gail@whattheythink.com.
