Sustainable Printing: Smartpress’ Carbon Neutral Program

As your eco-friendly online printer, Smartpress is always looking for ways to further assert ourselves as the industry leader in sustainable printing and corporate social responsibility. So in an effort to go carbon neutral and continue to reduce our business’ environmental impact, we’ve partnered with an environmental solutions provider to purchase Renewable Energy Certificates and Carbon Offsets.

With an environmental policy that states we’re “committed to leading the industry in minimizing the impact of our activity on the environment,” we put our money where our mouth is. Along with our parent company, The Bernard Group, Smartpress has significantly reduced our carbon footprint by purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and Carbon Offsets.

Our 2021 Carbon Neutral Program is comprised of:

• Green-e® Certified U.S. Wind and Solar Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs)
• U.S. Landfill Gas Capture Carbon Offsets at the Flathead Cooperative Landfill in Montana

“To us, operating a business sustainably is more than just a trend, it’s a responsibility,” said Liesl Beck, director of corporate social responsibility at The Bernard Group. “As a manufacturer, we inevitably produce greenhouse gas emissions. Now that we’re aware of the impact our business activities have on the environment, not only are we taking measures to reduce our impact, but also offsetting our use.”

We’ve purchased Green-e Certified U.S. Wind and Solar Renewable Energy Certificates to match all of the electricity used for online printing services in our offices and facilities, thus reducing our electricity-based carbon footprint by 3,536 tons of CO2.

The renewable energy generation we support has a positive environmental impact similar to growing 80,733 trees per year for 10 years, taking 1,029 cars off the road for one year or not using 11,215 barrels of oil.

Fun Fact: Green-e Certified renewable energy meets the highest standards in North America. It must be generated from new facilities that meet rigorous standards for environmental quality, marketed with complete transparency and accuracy and delivered to the purchaser, who has sole title.

Carbon offsets address greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and enable organizations like ours to reduce our environmental impact by supporting projects that are actively working to reduce, absorb or prevent carbon and other emissions from entering the atmosphere.

So how do carbon offsets work?  A carbon offset represents an action that sequesters carbon, converts it to energy or returns it to natural storage, such as in plankton that makes their bodies from carbon.

Projects can also be in the form of forestry conservation efforts or based on a technology that captures gas before it is released, such as at a landfill or farm with decomposing waste. Carbon offsets are tools that help make these projects financially viable and are usually purchased by volume.

We’ve purchased 788 metric tons of U.S. Landfill Gas Capture Carbon Offsets to cover 100% of our direct carbon emissions. This lowers our carbon footprint with an environmental impact similar to that of growing 13,134 trees per year for 10 years, taking 168 cars off the road for one year or not using 1,825 barrels of oil.