NEW YORK, NY, October 16, 2006---In the last year, much has been written and said about mounting greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. The publishing community in particular has brought much needed attention to the subject in the form of additional editorial coverage and even entire green issues.
And yet, magazine publishing – and by extension, the advertising carried by magazines – is itself a part of the problem, due to the paper and petroleum-based ink, solvents, plastics and adhesives used, fossil fuels burned and greenhouse gases emitted in the processes associated with manufacturing and distribution.
One ambitious company has come up with an idea that just may create a tipping point in the ongoing battle against global warming. John Hardy, the internationally respected jewelry brand known for its platform of ‘sustainable luxury,’ has contemplated the eco-footprint of its national advertising – over 150 pages in 2006 – and decided to do something about it. “Our advertising has significantly increased over the last 12 months. While we are enjoying the benefit of the additional exposure in the form of greater sales, we recognized that the impact on the environment is hardly a pretty picture,” admits Hardy. “That’s when we started thinking about the possibilities of sustainable advertising.”
As a means to compensate for the environmental impact of its media pages, the company has voluntarily stepped up to offset the carbon emissions generated through the planting of bamboo: long-lived, rapidly growing woody perennial grasses that are capturing the attention of environmentalists, sustainability advocates, architects and designers around the globe. To start, Hardy has decided to initiate a pilot bamboo reforestation project on Nusa Penida, a small island off the coast of Bali where the company is located. In addition to sequestering carbon dioxide, this project will yield many additional benefits: Local families will be provided with bamboo seedlings and training in sustainable cultivation of bamboo that will provide them with food and income as well as conserve precious soil, water and wildlife. An important aspect of this project will be a protected preserve for the highly endangered Bali starling. Other reforestation projects will follow in the United States.
Hardy’s long-term vision is for other advertisers to join him in reducing the global warming effects associated with their own advertising pages by reforesting the world, one island at a time.
In order to determine the amount of bamboo actually needed to offset the emissions, Hardy turned to the Institute for Sustainable Communication, an entrepreneurial not-for-profit organization in New York City dedicated to raising awareness and increasing capacity for sustainable business practices in print and other media, to help get the quantitative data it needed.
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The company asked ISC to help it first estimate how many tons of greenhouse gasses are emitted in conjunction with the ad pages that it purchased in 2006, and then to assist it with the identification of “best practice” protocols for the sustainable planting, cultivation and harvest of bamboo on the island of Nusa Penida. In addition, ISC was asked to assist in identifying independent certification bodies that could verify that the agro-forestry practices employed are sustainable and that the carbon sequestered by the agro-forestry project is equal to the carbon emitted in conjunction with the ad pages placed.
Easier said than done. Calculating an accurate greenhouse gas footprint for John Hardy’s advertising spend proved difficult, as few publishers have measured the environmental lifecycle data related to the production and distribution of their magazines, let alone for individual print ads.
Among the magazines that John Hardy advertises in, it turns out that only InStyle had the data Hardy was looking for, and David Refkin, Director of Sustainability for InStyle’s parent company Time Inc. agreed to provide it to ISC. However, for the ads placed in all the other magazines, there was no comparable empirical data readily available, so ISC had to make reasonable “straw case” estimates of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with those publications.
Ad Insertions
2006 |
161 |
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25 |
Total Estimated
Weight of Paper
Used |
406 Metric
Tons (approx.
30 elephants) |
Total Estimated CO2 Equivalent GHG Emissions |
451 C02-eq Metric Tons (approx.
34 elephants) |
Estimated CO2 Sequestration Rate of Nusa Penida Pilot Agro-Forestry Project |
33 tons of CO2 per year per hectare (approx. 3 elephants) |
Bamboo Required to Offset |
2 hectares for 6.83 Years (approx. 4 football fields) |
This week, a letter from Hardy himself will go out to the publishers of each of those magazines asking them to work with ISC to compile accurate, objective and readily accessible information about the carbon footprint associated with its ad pages so that ISC can more precisely determine the amount of bamboo needed to offset the emissions associated with ad pages.
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All information gathered will be kept confidential and be used only as a means for calculating offsets.
Hardy will be meeting with select publishers along with Professor Don Carli, ISC Senior Research Fellow to explore the creation of an alliance for sustainable advertising and working together as partners for change.
According to Professor Carli, “What is innovative about John Hardy’s initiative is that it is a constructive demonstration of responsibility in action that we believe will help to bring about significant economic, environmental and social benefit. It important because it takes action in a way that will measurably increase the sustainability of advertising and publishing supply chains rather than accusing others of failing to do so. In so doing it brings a much needed element of ‘do as we do’ to the topics of climate change and sustainable advertising. It serves as a practical example of what others can do, rather than telling others what not to do.”
"While the primary benefit of this new initiative is to help eliminate carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the benefits are not limited to the atmosphere alone. As an agro-forestry project, it will offer other environmental, social and economic benefits for the island of Nusa Penida, among them better water retention, erosion control, the migration of birds and endangered species, and new job opportunities. It is a holistic approach very reflective of the way that John Hardy does business: making jewelry while being enormously respectful to the land, the environment, the people and the culture of Bali,” Carli added.
Sustainable advertising is just the latest example of a long-term commitment to sustainability at John Hardy. From the bamboo structures it builds for its workshop needs and the women’s mud wall cooperative it started, to the organic farm on its compound from which it feeds its 700 workers daily and the midwife project which educates its workers about natural childbirth options, the principles of sustainability have guided its environmental, social and economic business practices since the company was started over 20 years ago.
Both Hardy and Carli recognize that offsetting the carbon footprint of print advertising is an important first step toward achieving sustainable advertising, but ultimately publishers and advertisers need to work together on reducing the energy, emissions and waste-related costs associated with publishing.
Thus, John Hardy has committed to an internal audit of its entire supply chain in 2007 in order to identify opportunities to reduce its eco-footprint even further. |
