You may know it as the 3P’s: people, planet, profit. Or you may know it as the Triple Bottom Line: social, ecological and financial. Either way, these 3 pillars of sustainability make the accounting ledger cover more than just the red or the black.
We here at Talkin’ Trash have often said that people vote with their wallet every day. It is with pleasure that we present an excellent case of the 3P’s from University Health Network’s Research group.
Annual reports, those weighty and ornamental tomes, demonstrate all of the important activities of the last year (we do them too). This is especially critical for places like research that have so many great projects to brag about, and so many more to get off the ground. Thanks to some masterminding by Ben Pakuts, the Research Annual Report had big green makeover.
When Ben went the Green Living Show, he saw a booth for Warren’s Waterless Printing and decided to try them. They use a waterless printing process (thus the name) to print the report on 100% post-consumer, uncoated recycled paper, “enviro100satin” from Cascades. As a bonus, Warren’s is Bullfrog powered, so the energy supply to print the report is clean, renewable and sustainable too.
Since Research prints 1,700 copies of the report, greening up the printing process and paper supply represents substantial environmental savings. Ben said these are delivered to a lot of interested parties like “all UHN Researchers, UHN’s International Research Advisory Board (IRAB), Research Committees, the Training & Development Department. They are also sent externally to granting agencies and other stakeholders (government, etc.).”. Ben mentioned some interesting news:
“Surprisingly, going this route has actually been more cost effective than previous, non-environmental printers that we have dealt with in the past. In 2012 it cost $12,077 to print the report (standard non-environmental printing). When we switched to Warren’s, it cost $8,187.98 in 2013 and $8,488 in 2014 (huge savings!).”
Want an even bigger savings? Have a looksee at the annual report online. Research has a lot to be proud of.
Green-procuringly yours,
Lisa
Talkin' Trash With UHN 