Seems like the industry has made some lemonade from the lemons tossed at us during the misguided and failed attempt of Toshiba to create a National NO-Print Day. October 23rd is now officially National Print Day… and forever after the 4th Tuesday in October.
What is National Print Day? Well, the intent appears to be correcting the misinformation out there that Print Kills trees aka is BAD, and is still vital to communication on Planet Earth. There is some environmental info on the site and a nice poster to print out.
(looking around) REALLY?
Here is the PERFECT example of why we are still having this conversation… 1. It’s the SAME conversation and 2. We are preaching to the choir.
I had a great meeting with Phil Riebel from Two Sides-US at GRAPH EXPO on this exact subject. Two-Sides is on a mission and is having success getting banks and utility companies to remove the anti-paper and green-washing messages about choosing electronic statements over printed ones from their materials. It’s not about removing the choice, its about making the choice about preference, and not some false eco-guilt about saving trees.
The fact that Two-Sides US is championing CHANGE like this is amazing, and I applaud them for it and will help in every way I can, but it’s really going to be a slow and long road, and again, it’s engaging to re-educate vs starting a new engagement. Without a boat load of money akin to National Campaigns such as the Dairy Farmer’s “Got Milk?” or “Just Say No” or pulling from the archives if you remember the Native American Chief’s singular tear slowing moving down his cheek at the site of roadside trash in the “Anti-Litter” commercials, changing a message on a bank statement isnt going to reverse the opinion of the masses in the massive way it needs to happen in the immediate sense.
Being a Print Producer, I never come to the table with a problem I dont already have at least one possible solution for. Knowing that I was going to meet with Phil, I took some time and decided to examine why everyone believes (knows, thinks, has heard) that styrofoam is BAD for the environment, yet the message that Paper and Print DONT kills trees (now, anymore) and is a sustainable form of communication hasn’t gotten through. My conclusion, we are being too passive about it.
I believe we need to STOP addressing the tree killing issue and change the conversation to something currently way more relevant in American households- JOB KILLING. Put a dollar sign on the problem. Shift the guilt to participating in job loss to get attention – THEN give people the facts on sustainability and change their minds – it’s all true anyhow. Two-Sides as it turns out has plenty of data on the loss of jobs in the print and paper industry and was already on a path to start messaging along those lines, I just had a more guerrilla/ in your face approach to get the message out… and it’s simple…
In your email signature, take out the “printing this email will not hurt the environment – doesnt kill trees” or whatever you have in there to counter-act the anti-print green-washing, and replace it with “NOT printing this email costs American’s Jobs – click here for more info” and link it to Two-Sides US or another credible source of information providing the facts about our industry.
It’s just an idea, but hey, at least it’s a new one.
Tomorrow, as we celebrate all things print, take a moment to reach out to 5 people with the “dont print this email” message in their signatures and see if you cant change some opinions. Reach out to customers and let them know its National Print Day and send them some facts – Print Is Big has some amazing ones, and you can even let them know they can PRINT OUT THE POSTER – guilt free!
Short of the patriarch/matriarch of a family-owned business tearing up over closing their shop and leaving nothing for their children and grandchildren during a Superbowl commercial, it really is going to be up to all of us to make the Eco-conversation change – even if it’s one email at a time.
PRINT LONG & PROSPER!
