Doing Well by Doing Good Goes Right to the Bottom Line

It has been said of pilgrim missionaries, “They came to do good, and they did very well indeed.” Four centuries later, the purpose-driven mantra of “corporate social responsibility” is catching on among U.S. firms, including printers. The CSR acronym, a catch-all for everything from clean, green practices to ethical behavior and nurturing employees, might be summed up in the word “sustainability.”

CSR practices should not be construed as an intrusion of moral imperatives on the world of commerce. No, this is strictly business. Best practices and optimized operations have a lot in common. It's a fact of business life that you can't continue if you aren't running in a supportable fashion.

Firms which are survivors in today's printing industry—timely in light of the Silver Anniversary of the GAM/GABB 101 list—may lay claim to credentials in this regard. Print wouldn't be around if it hadn't, over five centuries, found its own sustainable culture. What's new in the mix is some previously overlooked factors. The art lies in updating what these factors are.

At a recent fundraiser for the Electronic Document Systems Foundation, the print industry's digital-generation suppliers and users got a quick tutorial in sustaining workforces. The peripatetic Frank Romano noted that as print expands and workers retire, 60,000 jobs open yearly. Yet just 30,000 workers enter the field. Automation helps, as does the supply of “print-for-pay” by business services, computing firms, photo labs, etc. But new workers are gravely needed, as the Print & Graphics Scholarship Foundation regularly reports.

In another vein, visitors to Heidelberg's Premiere Packaging Inforum in Kennesaw, GA, got a grounding in sustainable packaging, as the press manufacturer hosted a presentation by John Bernardo of Sustainable Innovations. His message: Sustainable business practices are always more profitable. (Bernardo had addressed the Paperboard Packaging Council's Technical Forum on Sustainable Packaging across town that morning.)

In a preface to Bernardo's remarks, Heidelberg president Jim Dunne drew parallels for the audience—many of them package converters interested in sheetfed offset—about the endangerment of the print business in areas with fragile ecologies, such as Southern California. Citing how California's furniture industry fell to the green movement, Dunne bade the audience to take seriously similar threats to print and packaging if we do not become demonstrably cleaner. As it enters the folding carton market, Heidelberg has encountered green activism in the packaging reduction movement fed by Wal-Mart and the vilification of packaging excess.

Bernardo laid out the case for continuously optimizing business operations to reduce waste, defined as “any cost that goes into our product that does not produce value for the customer.” He mentioned the conversion of supermarket chain Albertsons from a firm that paid $90 per ton to have boxes removed, to one that earned $60 a ton recycling it, an example he calls “turning green to gold.” Sustainable development, noted Bernardo, meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet its own needs.

The move to socially responsible business practices by corporations rests on three drivers: compliance with laws to avoid enforcement; ethical convictions; or, in the most enlightened case, a realization that improving process will reduce waste and make our businesses more profitable.

On this Silver Anniversary of the largest graphic arts firms, numerous names live on as hyphenated joint-operations or units of bigger companies. And some live on in scholarship endowments funding education and training. That's not a bad legacy to leave if your firm finds an inviting turn in its pathway to the print business of the future.

bill.esler@reedbusiness.com