For Sandy Alexander – a full-service print and marketing communications company that offers digital, offset, finishing, and wide-format printing – the commitment to “sustainable intelligence” (which the company cites as a key business tenet) was born out of corporate social responsibility. Each Sandy Alexander facility runs on 100-percent wind power energy, is ISO 14001- and SGP-certified, as well as tri-certified for chain-of-custody sustainable paper through the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI), and Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. Chain of custody means the paper product must be tracked from the sustainable forest where it originated through its ultimate use.
There is expense involved with the SGP process, but after obtaining other certifications, it made sense for the company to pursue.
“Wide format creates a lot of waste. A lot of the substrates aren’t recyclable, so we could apply SGP to an area that was really creating a lot of waste,” says Ashlyn Van Dokkenburg, compliance and facility manager at Sandy Alexander.
Some of Sandy Alexander’s customers are concerned with sustainability and ask what certifications they have, while others focus solely on price point or longevity of the products, with little interest in whether or not the product is created sustainably. Whenever possible, each customer hears about the company’s eco-friendly efforts and product options, whether they choose those products or not.