LEED Qualified Wall Papers

Having been in the Graphic Communications, paper and printing industry for over 25 years, I have seen several green marketing trends come and go. Certainly I remember clearly the mid 90's when marketing campaigns to have all paper finished products have some recycled pulp value was the "theme of the day". It wasn't long before marketing was touting "this product is made with 20% recycled paper", which sounded good and made everyone feel great, even though 20% recycled paper content had been in place almost since the beginning of the paper industry. Paper manufacturers had already built in re-pulping floor scraps, roll ends and trimmings back into the cycle, simply out of economics. Ironically, this was enough to be able to put the "recycle" graphic bug on these papers.

Is today's "green" campaign any different? Possibly! The industry is much wiser to the "post-consumer content subject and government "green" incentives carry a greater set of rules and qualification processes. It is not to say that there is not a great deal hype to go around, after all we all have seen the "green lawyer" advertisements. But, there is an element of reality to the fact that sustainable practices must be put in place if we are to survive the competition for resources. China, Brazil and India enter an industrialization phase that could create if nothing else a price war for raw materials like we have never seen and this includes paper pulp. Enter the FSC and LEED certification and qualification programs that scrutinize the labeling of finished products in an effort to demonstrate sustainability of commercial practices.

This all sounds great! But, as a printer in the industry I have always been in the middle of the Designers who's goal has always been to attain "graphic nirvana", perfection in graphic representation and the reality of printing technology and application. Translated to production this means that we must be able to print fine screen rulings or DPI, with crisp edges, great ink hold-out and of course durability, beautiful whiteness and opacity with machines that were not engineered for this purpose. The reality of post-consumer waste in papers is that the greater the percentage, the more "dirty" the paper will look like, also the coarser the paper will be, that is unless the paper manufacturer uses a lot of energy or chemicals to clean the pulp and bonding agents to hold the short and broken up post consumer fibers. Herein lies the reality of sustainable practices, meeting that middle ground were quality is not compromised (greatly) and retain a manufacturing process that is neither costly or defeats the end goal of sustainable without harming the environment.

My company as a printer has decided to put skin in the game and is an investor in a paper development company that will comply with FSC and LEED certified materials. I believe that this is how we can make an effective difference; we must work together in cross-industry verticals to attain real sustainable products, rather than just another hallow marketing campaign of "green logos" everywhere. Our company has now announced a new paper line with an adjustable post consumer content, depending on the application and quality expectation. This paper already meets LEED requirements now, but we will have to see how real is market adoption of these materials. I will keep posting as we make progress and I have tangible data in terms of adoption and uses of these materials.

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