WE'RE BUILDING AN
ECO-FRIENDLY PRINT COMPANY

We know that our activities as a print company have an impact on the environment. What we hope this page gets across is that we are trying our best to mitigate and balance out those impacts with environmentally responsible practices and features. We strive to be better and will continue to work towards being the most eco-friendly stationery printer we can be.

A RUN-THROUGH OUR ENVIRONMENTAL EFFORTS:

All of our invitations, announcements, order of service and cards are printed on paper ultimately derived from trees. For this reason, we are trying to go the extra mile to balance our greenhouse emissions and promote eco-friendly printing practices. Here’s a summary of our environmental efforts so far. Further details can be found further down the page:

MORE INFORMATION ON OUR ECO-INVITES,
CARDS & MORE

All of our invitations, announcements, order of service and cards are printed on paper ultimately derived from trees. For this reason, we are trying to go the extra mile to balance our greenhouse emissions and promote eco-friendly printing practices. Here’s a summary of our environmental efforts so far. Further details can be found further down the page:

Carbon Offsetting:

Every purchase we make has a carbon footprint attached to it. Personalised stationery is no exception. For this reason, we have built a unique feature that we’re really excited about. In partnership with World Land Trust, we’re offering our customers the choice at check-out to offset the exact carbon footprint of their print order.

We calculate the total emissions generated in producing the paper, printing your designs and delivering everything to your address. The money taken is given straight to World Land Trust who use it to protect endangered forests and plant trees. In doing so, the environmental impact of your order is completely balanced out. We think it’s a great opportunity to make a positive environmental impact.

HERE'S AN EXAMPLE: CARBON NEUTRAL WEDDING INVITATIONS:

Find out more about our carbon micro-offsetting print service here.

Beyond offering you the choice to offset your order’s carbon emissions, we’re also doing our bit to balance our own footprint. We tally up the carbon costs of our in-house operations and donate that money to World Land Trust. Again, this will directly fund WLT's Carbon Balanced programme for the protection of forest ecosystems around the world.

The Paper Stocks We Print On:

It’s simple: we only print on sustainably sourced paper, certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

What does this mean when it comes to things like your wedding stationery? Well, the FSC is a non-governmental organisation that fights for the protection of forests around the world. They set standards for forest-based products (such as the printed stationery items we produce) in order to ensure that they are produced from sustainable sources. By offering only FSC certified paper stocks on our website, you can be sure that every item has been tracked from the timber grown in FSC certified forests, through paper mill and print house, all the way to your door. In doing so, we are avoiding bad practices that have plagued the print industry in the past: illegal logging; the destruction of high conservation value forests; and the civil right violations of indigenous peoples.

Are FSC certified paper stocks better than recycled paper stocks? Some of you may be wondering why we favour sustainably sourced paper over recycled stocks. The reason is that there is currently no way of knowing for certain that a recycled paper stock has in fact had a low environmental impact.

The recycling of paper requires electricity. If that electricity is supplied by coal-burning power plants, then the value of recycling is substantially undercut. Given that the majority of global paper recycling takes place in China, and given that, at the time of writing, China is powered by 70% coal energy, it is our opinion that recycled paper stocks do not deliver the eco-friendly outcome we want to achieve. Instead, we prefer to sell papers that are derived from certified, well-managed forests where trees are allowed to regenerate naturally. When offered alongside our carbon offset add-on feature, the result is a truly eco-friendly print service.

The Print House:

As well as offering a top quality, technologically advanced commercial print service, the print house we trust to deliver all of our orders works incredibly hard to meet its high environmental standards.

As a general commercial entity, it has made a long-term commitment to minimise any operations that negatively impact the environment. This extends to any impacts on air, land and water (ISO14001).

As a commercial print house, they carry full certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC-C001648) as well as the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).

Beyond its formal accreditations, the print house operates state of the art digital printers (HP Indigo 10,000) alongside efficient order management software. When compared to traditional lithographic printers, the levels of wastage, chemical use, and over-run pale in comparison.

Delivery:

Buying local is good for the environment.

All of our printed stationery is manufactured and delivered within the UK. This may seem obvious, but it is actually a rarity in the UK personalised stationery market. If you’re environmentally minded and shopping around similar services, take a look at the where a company’s print house is actually based. You might well find them to be based in France, Holland, Germany or even further afield. All that adds up to more airmiles and cost to the environment.

For our UK deliveries, we have selected DPD as our courier of choice. Out of all couriers on offer, we believe they have made the biggest commitment to high environmental standards. They have a carbon offset service in place and have already started including electric delivery vehicles in their fleet.

Alternatives:

It’s a simple fact: the most eco-friendly wedding invite is the one you don’t print at all. As part of a wider environmental strategy, we have launched a range of digital stationery designs for our customers to personalise and send out electronically.

All of the designs you’ll find on Utterly Printable are available on a download-only basis. This means you can create your invitation, thank you card or announcement online then download a high-resolution PDF version. This is perfect for those of you looking to send out your message by email. And not that it needs to be spelled out, but no paper means no carbon footprint…apart from the minimal energy required by your computer, phone or tablet.

Building on that, we have also launched an e-vite service specifically aimed at customers looking to contact people by text/SMS or WhatsApp. This service takes our most popular designs and makes them smartphone ready. Paired with our electronic RSVP feature which can be sent out alongside your WhatsApp invite, we thinks it’s a great, carbon-free way of saving the date for your wedding, inviting friends to an event, or announcing the birth of a new baby.