Soar Printing has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by more than 30 per cent, increasing the print industry’s sustainability credentials, and showing how Kiwi businesses can start living up to the country’s clean green image.
Green champions, from left: Vicky Soar, Jenny Carter, and Fred Soar
The Auckland company received serious recognition for its latest environmental feat, winning the ‘Reducing our greenhouse gas emissions’ category at the 2015 Green Ribbon Awards, from the Ministry for the Environment and the Department of Conservation.
Founded in 1920, the family-owned business has a room full of awards relating to its sustainability efforts, including the supreme award at the 2013 Sustainability 60 Awards. In 2009, Soar Printing set a target of a 15 per cent reduction in reported carbon emissions by 2015 but the company overachieved somewhat with a 30 per cent drop.
Jenny Carter, finance director at Soar Printing and granddaughter of founder Fred Soar, says, “Sustainability has been a big focus for our business for a long time and we have achieved significant improvements in other areas as well. Our fuel consumption and waste to landfill have both reduced by over 40 per cent relative to our turnover and number of staff since 2009.”
Since 2009, Soar Printing also reduced its power consumption by at least six per cent relative to turnover and number of staff. Carter says, “As a third generation family business that has been operating for nearly one hundred years, we firmly believe that it is the responsibility of each generation to leave things in better shape for the generation that follows.”
She adds that Soar Printing found that the process of achieving carbon neutrality easier than one might think and it is good for business, saving the company more than $50,000 a year. She says, “It does not necessarily require large capital investments, it saves valuable resources, and it can, in fact, reduce overheads and save money, even after paying for carbon credits to offset the emissions, which we cannot avoid. Based on our experience, I would encourage other businesses to go down the carbon neutral path.”
The business has come up with clever initiatives to get staff buy-in to the sustainability focus, including having competitions around recycling and fuel efficient driving. Carter says, “We have also introduced an environmental component into performance appraisals for staff.”
Soar Printing is the first printing company in New Zealand to produce carboNZero certified print products and services to the Publically Available Specification (PAS) 2050 standard, which assesses the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with goods and services. It achieved these savings through a range of solutions such as switching to fuel efficient vehicles; conducting an energy audit to improve energy efficiency; and changing the roofing materials to improve natural lighting.
