Ecologomania and Printed Products

If two recent reports from paper companies are any indication, it may soon become common for printed products to use ecologomania and ingredient lists to demonstrate their environmental friendliness.

Note the 10 environmental logos (above) on Cascades' 2008 sustainability report, which are truly an example of "ecologomania" -- the word I've coined for the display of numerous logos for such environmental certifications as sustainable forestry, recycled content, and energy source.

Catalyst Paper's 2008 sustainability report relies more on data than logos to communicate the company's environmental commitment. Its tell-all report provides mill-by-mill data on greenhouse-gas emissions, water usage, solid waste to landfills, and other items.

It also reveals the kind of data paper companies historically have held close to the vest, such as the amounts of various materials used by the company. Factoid: The company used almost as much precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) as it did fossil fuels.

Both the sustainability report and Catalyst's annual report have what looks like a food product's list of ingredients, showing the inputs and emissions from producing the paper for the report. Note that paper is high in natural fibers.

Another factoid: The carbon footprint of Catalyst's manufacturing operations more than tripled last year when it purchased a 100%-recycled newsprint mill in Snowflake, AZ from AbitibiBowater. That mill's greenhouse-gas emissions per ton of product were at least 9 times higher than that of any other Catalyst mill. So much for the simplistic notion that you can reduce carbon footprint simply by switching to paper with recycled content.

With all of the environmental buzzwords swarming around these days, especially today, vague communications blathering on about corporations’ supposedly green practices don’t carry any weight any more. Increasingly, publishers and paper companies may be expected to back up their claims with hard data and third-party certifications.

The Greenwashing Media Award Goes to . . .

While countless words are published about the environment in honor of Earth Day this week, it's time for the publishing industry to confront its involvement in an egregious, and rather bizarre, form of greenwashing.

I'm talking about touting Web content and digital editions as being environmentally friendly and disparaging ink-on-paper editions, which are still the major source of revenue for most traditional publishers. For example, one magazine's Web site recently admonished readers to reduce their carbon footprint by signing up for a digital edition -- right next to an article about the huge amounts of electricity that Web servers gobble up.

But the worst offenders are the vendors of digital-publication software, such as Nxtbook, Texterity, and Zinio.

"When you publish with Nxtbook Media, you're making a very green decision -- one that's good for both the bottom line and the environment," says the Nxtbook Web site without providing any data or justification for its questionable environmental claim.

Fortunately, Don Carli, the Godfather of Green Media, played the role of Bovine Fecal Matter Police in an excellent interview recently with Metaprinter:

"When subjected to 'cradle-to-cradle' lifecycle analysis, e-reading is not nearly as green as many naively assume it is," says Carli, founder of the Institute for Sustainable Communication. "Computers, eReaders, and cell phones don't grow on trees, and their spiraling requirement for energy is unsustainable."

Computers and other electronic equipment require various metals and petro-chemicals in the manufacturing process, electricity (often coal-powered) to live, and "at the end of their all-too-short useful lives . . . become the single largest stream of toxic waste created by man," says Carli. In contrast, "much of print media is based on comparatively benign and renewable materials."

I should note that Amazon and Sony seem to have had the good sense not to claim that their e-book readers are an environmentally friendly choice. Not so with the publishing-industry vendors who create editions of publications that can be read on computers.

So I now have the honor of presenting Dead Tree Edition's Greenwashing in Media Award jointly to Nxtbook, Texterity, and Zinio.

As punishment, their executives should be forced to use their own company's digital-edition software to read an entire digital facsimile of a magazine on a small laptop computer. Trying to read something that is taller than wide on a device that is wider than tall is a truly painful experience.

I Got "mine", But I Don't Get It

Time Inc. just spent at least $2, probably more, to produce and mail me a beautifully printed customized magazine called mine. Just one question: Why?

Actually, I have lots of questions, like why a big publisher with lots of smart people goofed on so many aspects of this much-hyped project.

But the fundamental question is why anyone at Time Inc. or Lexus, the sole advertiser, thinks the project is worthwhile. It's as if someone said, "Let's figure out how to spend as much money as we can on mine without creating any value for the advertiser."

Subscribers to the free magazine signed up on a Web site, choosing to receive content from five of eight possible Time Inc. or American Express titles and entering some information about their personal preferences. The magazine consists of 36 pages -- a cover, four personalized Lexus ads, a customized table of contents, and six pages from each of the magazines selected for the mash-up. Rex Hammock's blog has a nice little slide show depicting his copy.

The text stock is brighter and much heavier than that used in National Geographic. I'm guestimating it's at least a 70# coated #2. The extremely smooth surface, moderate paper gloss, and high print gloss allow for some striking photo reproductions.

The saddle-stitched magazine is printed using a very high AM (that is, not stochastic) line screen, with a bronze PMS border on all of the editorial pages. The opening page of each six-page section has only the source magazine's logo in black type, the bronze border, and the page number -- a bit of a waste.

But there are plenty of other questionable features of mine:

• Needless complexity: The combination of saddle stitching and six-page snippets creates far more versions of the editorial sections than are necessary because each printed signature contains content from two different magazines. It's no wonder some subscribers received the wrong sections. Here's a way to create a simpler magazine with more editorial content and probably a lower cost: Offer eight pages of each of the five selected titles in a (selectively) perfect-bound magazine. That would have created much less complexity and probably would have allowed the editorial pages to be printed offset instead of digitally, at significant savings without loss of quality.
  
  


• Pointless personalization: All of the personalization is with text -- such as subscriber's name, town of residence, and selections made on the multiple-choice survey. But nowhere does it show the nearest Lexus dealer, much less a map from the subscriber's home to that dealer. The gimmicky, clumsy personalization does nothing to drive sales or even to create interest in Lexus.
  
  


• Pointless ads: The personalization gimmick was supposed to highlight the customer's ability to customize a new Lexus 2010 RX. But nowhere do the ads mention customization. In fact, the only mention of Lexus is in one of the ads, and that's in small type on the back cover. So when the second ads begins, "We know how much you love . . .", some readers will assume the "we" is Time Inc., not Lexus.
  
  


• Expensive postage: The magazine was mailed presorted First Class at a cost of probably more than $1 per copy. Standard class would have cost less than half of that. All Time Inc. got for the extra money was faster delivery, which is kind of irrelevant for something with months-old re-purporsed articles, including one that touted SI.com's "breaking news coverage" of a 2008 European soccer event.
  
  


• Awful ad copy: With all of the unemployed journalists around, you'd think Lexus could have done better than run-on sentences like this: "With more usable cargo space for your matching designer luggage, and an available Heads-Up Display for keeping your eyes on the road because the LA Freeway can be tricky on your way to the beach." We're supposed to be impressed that the references to designer luggage, LA Freeway, and the beach were personalized (in grey type to emphasize the gimmick). But it left me wondering how the cargo space would help me navigate the LA Freeway, what a Heads-Up Display is, and whether that random comma had eaten the sentence's subject and predicate.
  
  


• Tiny photos: The high production values are wasted on some photos that are smaller than a postage stamp. I needed a magnifier to make out what one of those mini-photos was depicting, and I still can't figure out how it relates to the article.
  

A New Chapter (Eleven) for Paper

On a day when North America's largest newsprint producer (finally) went Chapter 11, here is a small piece of good news for the paper industry: Half of the respondents to a Dead Tree Edition poll expect little or no erosion in coated-paper prices during the next few months.

AbitibiBowater, aka AbitibiUnderwater, gave up trying to re-refinance its massive debt and filed for bankruptcy protection today in both the United States and Canada. The company, also a significant maker of coated and uncoated groundwood papers, has arranged debtor-in-possession financing that will help it continue operating while the courts restructure its debt.

Some newsprint customers, anticipating the filing, have been talking to competitors to ensure adequate supply if AbitibiBowater collapsed, even asking at least one paper company to re-enter the newsprint business. (Sort of like asking someone to head up the George W. Bush Fan Club, isn't it?) But all indications are that the company's mills will continue producing.

AbitibiBowater's move "will have greater implications for the company than for the newsprint market," writes Jim Rosenberg, a senior editor at Editor & Publisher.

One of those implications is that employees will not receive bonuses that were due them for 2008 performance, though I'm not sure what kind of performance bonuses are due for taking the company's stock from $20.47 to 47 cents in the calendar year. All incentive compensation for 2009 has also been suspended.

The filing puts the final nail in the coffin for the idea that the merger of Abitibi and Bowater would give one company enough market share to manage newsprint supply so that prices wouldn't collapse. More than ever, AbitibiBowater will be pressured to maximize immediate cash flow rather than managing supply to keep prices up.

Now as to that poll: Dead Tree Edition asked readers to vote on what the price of 40# coated #5 would be in July. When the poll was launched, RISI's Paper Trader had the market price as $900 per ton ($45/cwt.); the March number was $880. Half the voters thought the price would be at least $860, including 10% who thought it would be $900 or higher (wonder what they were smoking -- or what paper company they work for).

Only 29% voted for a crash, with pricing of less than $820, while another 21% voted for a modest decrease to the $820-$859 range.

Now I'm asking my readers another question: What will be AbitibiBowater's fate? Cast your vote in the poll, which appears on the right just above the "Featured Articles" listing.

One more question: Why was Google Adsense, which places ads based on the content of a Web site, posting an ad for E-Harmony on Dead Tree Edition today? Perhaps with all the talk of black liquor here lately it thought that romance was just around the corner.