"More than 80 per cent of the conversations I'm having are about physical print"

The power of print at a glance…

• Brands and companies want to get on the sustainability bandwagon, but there’s a knowledge gap that’s opened up around it.
• Moving to digital is not always the sustainable answer. Every time you send an email, there’s a CO2 impact from the server used.
• There’s a ‘trilemma’ in sustainability or procurement – cost, functionality and quality and now, sustainability.

 Director of Sustainability for HH Global Steve Lister says: ‘We used to have a dilemma in sustainability or procurement and that was cost versus functionality and quality. And it was easy to navigate this dilemma and pull those levers, because if you wanted less quality, the price would go down. But sustainability threw in a third one...

The Power of three

We call it the trilemma. You now have cost, you have functionality and quality. But now you have sustainability too. And all three of those are now pulling on each other. And that’s where the difficulties and the challenges lie. Because you can go and find a small, boutique, niche paper company that makes these beautiful fibres. But the costs are going to be higher, because they don’t make mass produced paper or mass-produced oil-based plastics. The challenge moving forward is, as we move away from mass produced pulp or pre pulp, how do these small niche producers get volume up and prices down? That’s a big challenge.

Schooled in sustainability

One thing we have noticed is that there’s a knowledge gap that’s opened up around sustainability. And that knowledge gap is now big. It’s a chasm. People want to get onto the sustainability bandwagon. And when you ask people, what do you want to do? What’s your goal? What’s your mission? Why do you want to do this? They don’t actually know.

Coming full circle

At HH, we have a very structured approach where we adhere to 24 sustainable principles across six lifecycle stages when we’re producing marketing materials. Our thinking is, is if you don’t report it, and if you don’t measure it, then you can’t manage it. We work on those 24 principles across the six life cycles - design, materials, suppliers, production and distribution. Then we look at end of life. It’s Mobius with a twist.

Measure for measure

We’ve created our own proprietary software which measures CO2. Everything passes through what’s called our sustainability hub, which has externally verified data points from environmental databases like ecoinvent. Sir David Attenborough once said that saving our planet is now a communications challenge. With that in mind, no one has a clue about the impact of digital. That every time you send an email, there’s a CO2 impact of the server used. We can work out the sustainable impact of digital marketing campaigns too. Moving to digital is not always a sustainable answer. Rather, we want to speak to our clients about having a blended marketing campaign.

Print’s physicality

I would say that at the moment, more than 80 per cent of the conversations I’m having are about physical print. As you go around the world, digital is not mature in certain countries. So physical print is still here and it’s still going to be the dominant factor for us.

HH GLOBAL is the global leader in tech-enabled creative production and procurement. They deliver a brand’s marketing campaign through industry-leading technology, and are the global leader when it comes to sustainability capabilities.

To know what the other 7 experts have to say about print's future, simply download the booklet Print Media Predictions 2023.