Can sustainable practices and business efficiency coexist? This question is at the heart of Quad’s approach to corporate responsibility. From product design and materials sourcing to logistics, the company is applying its knack for innovation in service of a more circular economy. One key learning: In many cases, the same solutions that benefit the environment can benefit clients — and Quad itself.
Tom Solomon has seen this firsthand. As Quad’s Senior Director of Design and Innovation, Product Design, he’s been able to apply the circular economy’s guiding principle — redesign, reduce, reuse — to serve client needs. By way of example, he points to a recent project where Quad was tasked with producing store display boxes for a national retail apparel chain. The original design featured a plastic base and integrated corrugated tower, which up to that point had been produced as a single unit. Quad proposed an alternative: a reusable plastic base that the retailer could keep at each store location, allowing them to simply swap out the corrugated element as needed.
“We were able to avoid the production of over 1,300 plastic bases,” says Solomon. “And we reduced the size of the carton, since the plastic base no longer shipped with the corrugated piece, which resulted in savings.”
While that type of innovative execution is happening on a project basis, Quad is also pursuing more sustainable business practices at an institutional level. The company frequently uses certified paper, which is sourced from healthy, responsibly managed sites and verified by third-party groups including Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC). This not only minimizes environmental risk and protects client brands, but also allows clients to display the SFI, FSC and/or PEFC logos, signaling their own sustainability commitment to consumers. Certified paper can qualify for special postage discounts through the U.S. Postal Service — savings the company is then able to pass along to clients.
Of course, in many cases, clients and their communities simply reap downstream benefits. Given Quad’s size and scale, even ostensibly minor tweaks to packaging and shipping — such as replacing clear poly tape with paper tape or using recyclable glassine bags (instead of standard plastic polybags) for retail signs — can make a meaningful difference. The same can be said of streamlining efforts that involve equipment and facilities. To wit, Quad has consolidated several of its Wisconsin printing operations into a single, centralized location in West Allis, instead of multiple buildings. This increases business efficiency, Soloman says, and reduces the company’s carbon footprint.
“Prior to this, we were printing in one facility and finishing in another, so daily, we had seven to 10 trucks just going back and forth,” he explains. “Now we’re saving 2,100 miles and 249 days of travel annually. That amounts to a reduction of approximately 5.8 tons of carbon emissions per year.”
