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Earth Day: GSP Packs Sustainability Into Every Order
APRIL 22, 2023 BY MARGARET SOTROP – Every Earth Day at GSP, we like to remind our clients how we are proud that sustainability is baked into our printing, packing and shipping processes. With four printing and fulfillment centers, strategically placed around the country, our clients’ orders don’t ship far. That saves fuel and costs. Our AccuStore retail platform allows us to ship store specific marketing kits, which reduces wasted signage and printed materials. In summary, we can ship less product, we don’t send it as far, and we can still have the same powerful impact in-store. That saves money for our clients with reduced money spent on shipping product and eliminating product they don’t need.
But there is more. Nearly everybody we work with understands how commercial printing has changed. The images and messages we start with for in-store marketing are digital content. Gone are volatile inks and they have been replaced by water-based and vegetable-based inks. Gone is the air-drying process that releases those volatile chemicals in the atmosphere, and they have been replaced by LED-powered dryers that flash the ink and fuse it to the substrate.
These longer-lasting inks require replacement with much less frequency, which is another environmental benefit. Substrates made from recycled materials have become less expensive, and GSP is one of the few printers set up to recycle fabrics at our production and fulfillment center in Madison, WI. It is certified by the Sustainable Green Partnership.
All the images and marketing messages we start with are digital content. At GSP, we can take the print images and deploy them on digital networks. These new methods allow retailers to maintain brand and message continuity across their stores.
There are other aspects of GSP that you might not know. Many GSP employees telework. Video conferencing has become part of our culture, and this makes a tremendous impact on our sustainability process.
What else can we do for sustainability? We have to keep our eyes and ears open and be proactive to requirements of our clients and their customers. There’s always room for improvement.
