Vertis Communications has 5,600 employees in 100 locations. And in 2007, it reached an estimated $1.5 Billion in sales. The company provides a wide array of services to advertisers and direct marketers, including: creative/agency, direct mail printing and production, insert advertising, marketing insights, and media placement capabilities.
Vertis, too, can claim that it is a green marketer. Earlier this year, the company announced that it had achieved Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Chain-of-Custody Certification. Bestowed by the FSC member organization Rainforest Alliance, the certification demonstrates Vertis’ commitment to environmentally and socially-conscious forest management. It purchases exclusively from paper manufacturers that are either FSC-certified or allied organizations pursuing similar objectives.
Impressive, for sure, but Vertis’ successful efforts to go green include much more. It has undertaken a company-wide waste reduction and environmental sensitivity program to become a more responsible partner, community neighbor and corporate citizen. Its ambitious program includes the following corporate directives:
- Specification that more than 25 percent of the newsprint used in the production of inserts and circulars contains recycled fiber. Vertis also recycles more than 70,000 tons of printed and unprinted waste paper each year;
- All-facility migration to a computer-to-plate printing environment, eliminating the waste of polyester film and processing chemistry; in addition, the company recycles its aluminum printing plates, preventing more than 950 tons of aluminum from entering the waste stream;
- Selection of environmentally friendly inks, and development of a hybrid printing process that requires 30 percent less energy and recycles ink to prevent it from entering the waste stream;
- Installation of state-of-the art thermal oxidizers on all of its heatset presses; when burning ink solvents, carbon emissions are created, and these oxidizers “scrub” the air so it is clean when it is released back into the environment;
What is more, Vertis’ green practices extend to its corporate offices where filtered water replaces the bottled variety, and supplies and equipment, such as: office paper, toner cartridges, computers, and mobile phones are routinely recycled.
Vertis has gone green in a big way. And by doing so, the company has become an attractive place to work for likeminded green-marketing executive talent.
I didn’t realize Vertis was such an environmental steward.
Sometimes direct marketers (direct mailers especially) take hits from people outside the industry who think we’re irresponsible about the environment. This is truly good news that I can show them.
Nice blog too!