industry
NEWS The carbon footprint that is left by printing BBI International Inc.’s publications has been neutralized. Joe Bryan, vice president of media, said the company has implemented an environmentally friendly carbonneutral printing process. BBI addressed the carbon-neutral issue in 2007 and was surprised at the difference some basic changes can make, Bryan said. The company prints its magazines and directories at R.R. Donnelly. Just a change in the type of paper had positive results. “The carbon output in the production of the paper that BBI was originally using per issue (one individual magazine) was 49,102 pounds of carbon dioxide,” said Timothy Portz of R.R. Donnelly. “The carbon output for the new paper is 32,155 pounds. The savings is 16,947 pounds, the equivalent of taking two cars off the road for a year.” BBI, which publishes six trade magazines (three monthly, two bimonthly and one quarterly), in addition to two annual directories and two biannual wall maps, implemented its carbon-neutral plan for the printing of the 2007 directories. Bryan said when Portz
PHOTO: R.R. DONNELLY
BBI International becomes carbon-neutral
R.R. Donnelly account representatives Timothy Portz, left, and Seth Porter run press checks before printing Biomass Magazine.
explained the effects of the change in paper after the first printing run, he was stunned. “It was unbelievable,” Bryan said. ”For that one publication, it was enough to power four houses for a year, just by changing the weight of our paper.” BBI clearly views paper as an operational necessity, Bryan explained. The printing run of the directories was the springboard that started a complete printing overhaul. “Tim explained to us that if we invested ‘x’ amount of dollars, we would be one of the very first publications in
the country to be completely carbon-neutral,” Bryan said. “We knew right away we had to do it.” Portz said the collaborative effort between R.R. Donnelly and BBI is the real deal, and not just what he called “greenwashing,” which refers to companies trying to hang a green marketing message on something that’s not truly worthy. “We spent a lot of time getting an accurate assessment of [BBI’s] carbon footprint as it stood before we took over,” he explained. “We drew a baseline and then developed real strategies to drive out real carbon. It wasn’t just, ‘OK, here is the carbon footprint. Let’s buy offsets. See you later.’ We came up with a manufacturing strategy that reduced [BBI’s] total cost [and] reduced the environmental footprint. We cut the carbon footprint nearly in half.” Bryan said BBI is pleased with the results of carbon-neutral printing, and the company will continue to implement viable and environmentally friendly projects whenever possible. -Timothy Charles Holmseth
NASA-funded study to explore biomass impacts on weather Changes in cropping patterns and the introduction of more perennial biomass crops such as switchgrass may have an impact on the weather and climate predictions. Scientists at South Dakota State University's Geographic Information Science Center of Excellence have received a $738,000 grant from NASA for a three-year study to focus on land use in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, western Minnesota and northern Iowa. SDSU’s GIS center will be working with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earth Resources Observation Systems Data Center, and the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. The project will generate scenarios of possible landscape changes, and the impact
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on weather and climate, explained Geoffrey Henebry, an SDSU professor and senior scientist at the GIS center. “The change in cropping patterns will be driven by the location of ethanol plants,” he said, with each ethanol plant drawing feedstock from a given area. As cellulosic ethanol technology develops, there’s potential for corn-based ethanol plants to retrofit to cellulosic processes, resulting in a feedstock change from corn to switchgrass. The change in crops will have consequences in the amount of energy and water that is released into the atmosphere, primarily because perennial crops green earlier and remain greener later in the fall. The project will project how that may affect precipitation patterns and the potential for
severe weather. The research will also study the impact of landscape changes that occur in patches throughout a region, rather than the entire landscape being converted to switchgrass as some studies have hypothesized, Henebry said. The researchers will also project the impact of potential fire scenarios. “There is a potential for fire that hasn’t been there since the European settlement,” Henebry said. Switchgrass research indicates a sustainable harvest will occur in the fall after the first hard freeze. Plus, there is an emphasis on high yields. “It will be dry and extremely flammable,” he said. -Susanne Retka Schill