Issue: February 1, 2009

EMBRACING THE GREEN

You may have noticed that recently Post has been talking to companies about how they are trying to reduce their carbon footprint, and this issue is no exception. In this issue, we are highlighting some people and companies that are doing their part, sometimes one plastic bottle, one light bulb, one green tip at a time.

89 Edit, which has offices in New York and Santa Monica, is embracing the green movement head on. According to the studio, they receive and send thousands of reels a year, which involves transporting a hard copy by means of shipping or a messenger service. Instead, they are now sending reel links via email in lieu of hard-copy reels, eliminating any fuel usage through shipping… not to mention saving shipping costs.

Lighting is another area they have targeted by replacing all of their bulbs with Energy Star certified CFLs, which use 75 percent less energy to produce the same amount of light as older bulbs. 89’s Santa Monica offices take advantage of natural light in both the main space and edit suites.
89 also unplugs office electronics when not in use, which saves plenty in energy bills and at the same time lowers their ecological footprint.

Finally, 89 recycles everything it can — plastic bottles, paper, cans, even tape stock and printer cartridges are all sorted and recycled or reused.

Rachelle Way, executive producer of NYC’s Company X and Sugarbox Studios, says, “Over the past couple of years both Company X and Sugarbox Studios have been making strides to turn our studios and offices into more green-friendly businesses. We started by replacing our light bulbs with energy efficient bulbs and eliminating the use of plastic bottles.”

Andrew Hollander, film composer/songwriter at Sugarbox, reports that the studio “recently signed up with Good Energy, an energy supplier that uses Renewable Energy Credits to offset carbon emissions’ impact on the environment.”

And Post is doing its part. We now print with 100 percent soy ink, which is a more environmentally friendly, healthy and safe approach to printing that takes only a small amount of energy to make. According to Wikipedia, Soybean agriculture uses only 0.5 percent of the total energy needed to produce soy ink. Much of that crop requires no irrigation, limited fixed nutrients and leaves fewer agricultural residues than other crops. Soy ink also has low levels of VOCs, (volatile organic compounds), which helps to reduce air pollution by minimizing toxic emissions.

We have also made available a digital edition of the magazine for those who are interested and, as always, after reading Post, RECYCLE!