OUR COMMITMENT
TO SUSTAINABILITY AND TO THE FUTURE OF OUR WORLD

We want to keep our country and world beautiful, both for today and for the future.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

By minimising waste, paying careful attention to the source of our products, recycling and monitoring our water and power consumption, we can do our part in realising a sustainable future. So whether it's point of sale displays (POS), packaging, large, medium or small, you can rest assured that with ABC Original Print your requirements will be fulfilled in a way that’s gentle on your environment. ABC Original Print is a brand owned and operated by parent company ABC Group. The whole group is committed to sustainable business practices. We are always looking for new and better ways of doing our bit to protect the environment.

​

​

​

The Environment

​

As New Zealanders, protection of the environment is more important than ever if we wish to maintain and improve the beautiful country that we live in. More and more customers are justifiably aware of the issues affecting the environment and their purchasing decisions and they're looking for like-minded businesses to provide products and services that are environmentally friendly.

Today’s paper industry is one of the most sustainable industries in the world. Wood for paper making is sourced from well-managed forests, where far more trees are planted than are cut down. And the paper industry is leading the way in its development of sustainable manufacturing practices.

What’s more, the tree farms planted and tended by the timber and paper industries act as vast carbon sinks that help repair the environmental damage caused by other industries.

​

​

"There aren't many industries around that can aspire to become genuinely sustainable. The paper industry, however, is one of them. It is inherently sustainable."

(Jonathan Porritt, Chairman UK Sustainability Development Commission and Founder Forum for the Future)

​

The Facts

Paper is an amazing product. As well as being beautiful, practical and versatile, it has exceptional environmental credentials. It's biodegradable and recyclable. It's made from an infinitely renewable resource and is sustainably produced.

• Reading a newspaper can consume 20% less carbon than viewing news online - Swedish Royal Institute for Technology.

​

• 64% of consumers pay more attention to print ads than online advertising.

​

• Around 50% of paper is recovered and fed back into the paper making process worldwide. In New Zealand this figure is 78%, the highest in the world.

​

• The world's forested surface is increasing by around 340,000 hectares a year.

​

• It is estimated that there are 25% more trees in the developed world today than at the beginning of the 20th century.

​

• If a tree is cut down in a sustainable tree farm, 3-4 new trees are planted.

​

• For every tonne of wood produced by a tree, 1.5 tonnes of carbon are taken out of the atmosphere.

​

• Print what you want, when you want it: no ordering 1500 & only using 900. Print on demand reduces the need for storage, saving space and resources as well as reducing the possibility of stock becoming out-dated.

​

• Energy-efficient: Wood and wood products require relatively less energy to extract and harvest than other resources.

​

• No waste by-product: The use of wood and forest-based products has the potential to generate no waste. It is possible to use the entire resource.

​

• PEFC and FSC certified products - companies ensuring sustainability of the forest industry.(https://nz.fsc.org/en-nz & https://www.pefc.org/)

Paper Making and Sustainability

Forestry

​

It’s a myth that the paper industry causes deforestation. In fact, for every tree cut down to make timber or paper products, three or four are planted in its place. The world’s forested surface is actually increasing by 340,000 hectares a year. Deforestation is occurring mainly in the tropics, for reasons completely unrelated to paper. The main causes of deforestation are agriculture and domestic fuel use, which account for around half of all trees cut down worldwide.

​

There are around 140 million hectares of farmed trees around the world. Each of those trees spends its life gobbling up the CO2 by-products of fossil fuel use, storing the carbon and releasing vital oxygen. And products made from trees, like timber and paper, lock away that captured carbon for the lifetime of the product.

​

​

Papermaking

​

Making paper is a large-scale process and might be expected to have some serious environmental impacts. But it’s far less resource-intensive than many people think. Innovations in technology are delivering improvements all the time in areas like energy and water consumption and the development of safer chemical processes.

​

Since 1990, energy consumption per tonne of paper produced has gone down by 21% internationally. Greenhouse gas emissions per tonne of paper have reduced by 22%, and water consumption has reduced by 63%.

​

Today the paper industry is one of the biggest users of renewable, low carbon energy. In Australia and New Zealand, a third of the energy used to make paper comes from renewable energy sources. In Europe the figure is around 50%.

​

Papermaking does use large quantities of water, which well-managed mills take from rivers and lakes, purify and then recycle again and again within the mill. At the end of its usefulness, this water is thoroughly treated before being returned to the waterways – very often cleaner than when it went in.

​

​

Recycling

​

One of the reasons paper is such a sustainable product is that it’s fully recyclable. Around 50% of paper is now recovered and reused around the world, dramatically reducing the amount of paper going to landfill or being incinerated.

​

Paper recycling is an important sustainable practice because it reuses a readily available raw material. However, whether as a consumer you should choose recycled or virgin-pulp paper on environmental grounds is far from clear-cut. It largely comes down to the individual practices, energy sources and de-inking processes of the mills and pulp manufacturers making it.

Print vs Digital Media

​

Whether it’s an email, a DM piece, a TV ad or a billboard, any communication has its environmental impacts. Which medium has the least impact is extremely difficult to determine. To gain an accurate picture, you need to look at the raw materials it’s made from, the manufacturing process, energy use and full life cycle.

​

Many people think of emails and websites as having a small environmental footprint. But they wouldn’t exist without computers, and computers have significant environmental impacts. They contain non-renewable plastics, toxic chemicals and metals. The amount of energy used by the consumer electronics sector is increasing rapidly, much of it fossil fuel-generated. And the disposal of electronic waste is becoming a huge problem around the world.

​

Compare these factors with the natural sources and sustainable practices of the paper industry, and you can see why there’s no straightforward answer. The best you can do is plan your campaigns carefully, be as targeted as possible and choose your paper wisely.

​

​

Sources:

The Printing Report. (2018). TRUE OR MYTH: IS PAPER ONE OF THE FEW TRULY SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTS?. https://theprintingreport.com/2018/03/08/true-or-myth-is-paper-one-of-the-few-truly-sustainable-products/

​

Two Sides. (2021). READY TO BUST SOME MYTHS?. http://www.twosides.info/myths-and-facts