Paul Opie has joined CarbonCo as partnership manager, a return to the industry he stepped away from following the collapse of Latimer Trend.
“It’s really good to be back,” says Opie. “Print is something like Hotel California – you can check out but you can never leave.”
He fills a role left vacant following Greg Selfe’s departure to form his own environmental consultancy. He joins at a point that interest in sustainability is rocketing among printers, publishers and packaging companies in the face of a need to cut emissions by 50% before 2030 in order to meet international carbon commitments.
“We feel we can make a difference at CarbonCo,” says Opie. That means working with the World Land Trust to protect and restore high conservation value forests as a way to offset emissions that printers generate. This is a step beyond the popular Carbon Balanced paper initiative by going deeper into which emissions are offset.
At the start of the year CarbonCo had hoped to have 100 UK companies achieved Carbon Balanced Printer status, but the hiatus before Opie joined will most likely delay that milestone. To date 52 printers have the certification.
Printers are already on the way to be sustainable and environmentally friendly, says Opie, using a renewable and recyclable resource and now “there’s genuine interest in where people can make a difference”.
Before taking this job, Opie had worked for St Ives as well as Latimer Trend in a range of senior management roles. Returning to a similar position was not as attractive as the new post. It could take him visiting and talking to printers, but times have changed he says and Zoom or Teams will be used for many meetings, with a direct carbon impact on doing business. Where face to face meetings are held these will be less frequent and more strategic.
There is pressure from major corporates on the suppliers to reduce carbon emissions, resulting in calls to CarbonCo to come up with the figures to show carbon impact. And this stokes the interest in what printers need to do.
Opie adds: “It’s not that scary, it’s not prohibitive snd it’s not that complicated for printers. It’s quite achievable and quite manageable for businesses of all sizes.”
