PrintGreen and JicMail have come together to enable users of direct mail to calculate the carbon footprint of any campaign they might be contemplating.
PrintGreen launched nine months ago to provide specifiers with an accurate background to how to specify print jobs with a lower environmental impact and with an online free to use calculator that could work out how much carbon any job might generate. While this is not exhaustive, it enables quick comparisons between materials, production methods and print locations. It has been increasing in popularity.
Now the service has been expanded to become part of JicMail’s Discovery platform and to enable calculations across mail formats. Envelope type, paper size and weight and any finishing. Simultaneously the PrintGreen carbon calculator includes JicMail’s performance criteria to deliver a carbon figure per conversion or response across different product types, a mail piece, flyer or door drop leaflet say.
The collaboration is also in line with the wider industry initiative Ad Net Zero which in turn aligns with the Global Media Sustainability Framework which covers all types of advertising media and channels.
According to director of data leadership and learning at JicMail Ian Gibbs: “Businesses must build their confidence levels in assessing the carbon output of the marketing activity – only by establishing their baseline carbon footprint can they then decide how to optimise and improve their sustainability position. The integration of JicMail data offers a unique perspective on carbon output per ad impression, creating comparability across other marketing channels where this data is also available.”
The carbon calculator uses data from Carbon Quota and it says that the PrintGreen engine is delivering thousands of interactions a month. Chairman Tom Maskill is client director of Webmart, which has created its own comprehensive measurement for direct mail campaigns covering the choice of sorting office and distance mailings have to travel as part of the calculation.
He has seen increased interest in being able to provide carbon information as part of a job specification. “Larger corporations and public bodies are asking for details about green qualifications in tender documents, so the carbon emissions of a print job have become a scoring criteria along with price quality and service,” he says.
