At this early stage of the game—with no abundance of time-tested guidance in the direction of ecofying a business—it can be hard to know where to start, but easy to throw up hands and walk away. Here’s the story of one company’s simple approach toward the discovery that “going green” is less of a destination than it is a journey.

All about dialogue

While navigating the environmental movement’s bewildering maze can seem daunting, Marshall Atkinson nudged his T-Formation in the right direction by starting a conversation about Sustainable Green Printing Partnership (SGP) certification, a sustainability program especially designed for the print and graphic-communications industries. “What I like about the program,” Atkinson reports, “is they don’t tell you to use this T-shirt, that ink, this machine, in that type of building with a solar panel. It’s whatever works for your company to help this whole movement grow.”

Promoting social responsibility through sustainable printing practices, SGP considers three elements: the Envelope—facility, lawn, parking lot, employee commute and so on; the Process from pre- to post-press; as well as the design aspects and input material that go into the Product. It encourages dialogues with suppliers, employees and customers, and Atkinson’s had more than a few. When the SGP asked “what are you demanding of your vendors?” he went looking for answers at last year’s SGIA Expo. “While we were in Atlanta, we talked to our ink people about the recyclability of their plastic containers, and they’re working on getting us all that documentation,” he explains, challenging other decorators to seek similar answers. “Is the cardboard in your boxes 100 percent recyclable? And, if not, why not? You have to start somewhere. We never had these conversations before because they really hadn’t been on the agenda.”

Baby steps toward a greener good

With 150 people running nine automatic presses, a couple manuals, 19 embroidery heads and a direct-to-substrate printer nearly 24 hours a day, T-Formation has some big-time clientele to match its stature, which was part of the impetus behind seeking this certification.

“After learning about it from the SGIA website, it piqued my interest,” Atkinson explains, “as more and more of our clients are greening up their business structures. We’ve had to send our inks off for heavy-metal testing twice this year at the request of two high-profile clients. The entire eco-friendly movement is gaining momentum, and it’s easy to envision a day when doing business with any client will require this type of certification. Our goal is to head this off at the pass and be certified before it’s asked of us. It’s just good business.”

With some best practices already under his belt, Atkinson also views certification as an official extension of existing efficiencies, which include reducing energy consumption through installing KVAR energy-controller units and looking into solar panels. “We may not be able to sell the eco-ink to some people because it costs more, but we do a lot of thinking about better ways of doing things,” he says. “Instead of mailing somebody an invoice, you can email it to them. That’s what we’re talking about with this, just finding those little baby steps and taking them.”

Containers are placed around the company in strategic locations for recyclable items and the company plans to implement a program to weigh, measure and document its recyclables.

Sustainability mission statement

There are two roads to SGP certification and, after conferring with colleagues, Atkinson set off down the “Candidate Pending Verification” route, giving T-Formation a year from application approval to certification. “To go after the full-fledged ‘SGP Printer’ status off the bat would mean that we’d need to have some more disciplined control systems and programs already in place, and we don’t,” Atkinson remarks.

Less formal, the CPV affords time to organize, build and plan for sustainability without getting penalized for coming up short of all requirements from the get-go.

A look inward was among Atkinson’s next steps, with info-gathering to determine the dimensions of the current ecological footprint before attempting to fill it in. “There are really three main components,” he explains, “benchmarking your company, planning your sustainability program, then the auditing and follow-up process. They have a lot of air-pollution standards, for example, and noise pollution. We’re T-shirt printers, we don’t have any of that. But we have to thoroughly investigate it.”

Translate the rhetoric from everything learned into strategic points of action and you’re well on your way to a Sustainability Policy, designed to designate an organization’s commitment to adopting sustainable business practices. “It’s intellectually challenging because you want to write it so it really broadcasts what you’re trying to do. But it has to be written so it makes sense to your company.” Likening the policy to writing a mission statement, Atkinson anticipates a lot of debate during a process in which he plans to involve other company personnel to get ideas flowing.

Within a year’s time, when all formal SGP requirements are met and it’s ready to take the test, T-formation will request an audit. “They send you what they call a desktop checklist with all the questions they’re going to be asking you so you can make sure you’re compliant before they actually visit.”

Behind the green scenes

Once certified, each organization must commit to at least one continuous-improvement project per year and, like a science fair, the experiment is that organization’s to decide. “It could be ‘I’m going to recycle my boxes’ or ‘I’m going to put on solar panels’ or ‘I want to install geothermal heating,’ ” Atkinson states. “But you have to write it, keep up with it and maintain the project, then write a report that says what you tried to do, whether you succeeded, and post it on the website.” Additional audits every two years ensure each certified printer is making moves to further its sustainability. “Like anything, you have to dedicate the time and have discipline enough to follow through. SGP certification isn’t just a rubber-stamp approval process, you have to actively demonstrate that your company is on board and dedicated to making an impact and improvements,” he remarks. “We’re not kidding ourselves. It’s going to be a challenge. But in the end, if we come out of it a better, more profitable company while being better stewards for the environment, how can you resist that?”

With all these checks and balances in place, becoming officially eco-committed adds up, demanding time and coin. For the latter, SPG partners with several organizations, including the SGIA, which lends a hand to members through discounts on fees and applications.

Among existing eco efforts are T-Formation’s efficient new Energy-Star-rated vending machines, held within a motion-sensor break room that powers them down when nobody’s around.

For the time and dollar expenditure, however, certified printers will gain a return on investment equaling more than what’s saved in energy bills. Along with being acknowledged on the SGP Partnership website and permitted to use its logo, Atkinson predicts that lighter businesses in every category will rise to the top of a congested marketplace, and decorators aligned with the increasing number of environmentally-savvy businesses will have an edge.

From T-Formation’s perspective, forging this initiative is a challenge to improve, be more efficient, eliminate waste, educate and train others; and, ultimately, running a leaner company with smaller operating costs creates potential for plumper margins. “The certification process asks some questions that we’ve honestly never stopped to consider, so it’s a great catalyst for dialog within your company,” says Atkinson. At the very least, such conversations can prove enlightening. And even if they’re not backed up by going forward with certification, a business will come away with what’s learned and perhaps become more efficient economically, if not ecologically.

Visit www.sgppartnership.org for more information on SGP certification.