Travelling in the Metro today made me notice how many Parisians read books—rather than newspapers—on their way to work.  Ballpark calculation: there were probably five books for every three newspapers in the train carriage.  Quite the opposite from London, where the majority of commuters lose themselves behind newspapers (free ones for the great majority).  But it brought me back to some numbers I read not long ago: did you know that more than 30 percent of printed books are never sold and eventually destroyed and re-pulped?  And that roughly ten percent of newspaper printing is simply wasted?       

But more on that shortly.

I’ve been following last week’s environment news closely, as have many others at HP.  Sustainability is now integral to every part of our business, and these updates are particularly timely:  not only are we seeing significant returns on HP’s own environmental goals and commitments; we’re also seeing the uptake of sustainable practices by customers really hitting an upward curve.  Economic downturn or not, businesses continue to invest in green IT, hitting compliance targets but also realizing significant bottom-line benefits. Good environmental practices simply make for good business.  The majority of our larger customers now have systematic environment policies in place, and small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) are quickly catching up.  Many of the HP initiatives announced in the last few days are backed by strong customer demand for tools and advice that can help them ‘go green’ at a low cost—and that’s significant. 

Last week’s news was also big for printing.  One of the announcements that caught my attention was our work around the SMART 2020 report.  Published recently by the Climate Group, this report quantified the carbon emissions of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector based on growth projections through the year 2020, and examined where the industry could enable emission reductions across various areas.  At HP we set out to evaluate the report’s findings and apply its premises specifically to printing.  The results were revelatory. We estimated, for example, that the carbon footprint of printing was something close to 850 million tonnes in C02 equivalents. 

The opportunities to reduce this impact are huge.  We are addressing this in multiple ways—investing in green technology and R&D, driving resource efficiency straight into print hardware and consumables, and better educating buyers with more robust product labelling and guidance, amongst others.  But the bigger picture is about the transition from analog to digital printing, which is having a profound impact on the print business across the board. 
       
When we think of printing, we mostly think of office or home printing.  This is the bedrock of digital printing: the printing of documents from digital files. Yet digital printing represents less than ten percent of printed paper volumes worldwide.  All the rest is printed on offset—analog—technology.  This includes most of the newspapers, magazines and books that comprise over half of the paper volume used in printing around the world.  Huge set-up costs mean that offset processes require printing in large batches in order to be economically viable.   The result?  You heard it:  up to 30 percent of traditional book stock is unsold and eventually re-pulped, up to 11 percent of newspaper printing is waste and 20-30 percent of marketing collateral from offset printing methods is sitting on shelves, discarded or rendered obsolete before use.

Digital processes are driving nothing less than a total transformation of printing and the workflow processes linked to it—from data capture through to storage, distribution and output.  On-demand digital publishing enables printing when and where it is needed, and in the quantity needed—vastly reducing the cost of waste, transport, warehousing and outdated inventory.  Variable data printing allows for rapid prototyping of documents as well as customization of print media that creates efficiencies and makes materials more effective and impactful.  From the ‘print and distribute’ model of yore the industry now shifts to ‘distribute and print’, with printing carried out close to where it is needed.  Shorter-run printing becomes economically viable, transforming the business models of print service providers (PSPs) and reducing waste associated with make-ready and change-over in traditional printing operations. 

HP is making a concerted push to drive an industry transition from analog to digital printing.  We estimate that, from this transition alone, the opportunity exists to reduce the impact of printing by 251 million tonnes, CO2 equivalents, by the year 2020.  To provide perspective, this is nearly equivalent in size to the impact of the entire telecommuting industry.  The opportunity is huge and we’re greatly excited.  

There are a few calls to action here.  Vendors like HP need to continue investing in technology and driving training and education around the benefits of digital printing.  For Print Service Providers, it’s about implementing low-waste business models based on shorter runs, and pursuing value-add business through customized content. Print buyers should look to include digital printing in environmental purchasing guidance and specifications, and adopt print-on-demand strategies to avoid warehousing and obsolescence.

Now back to Parisians preferring their books over their newspapers:  Does that make us more cultured or less informed?

Jean-Pierre Le Calvez

Vice President, Marketing, Imaging and Printing Group EMEA