Australian Paper

What does sustainability mean to you?
At PwC sustainability and our approach to Corporate Responsibility is the integration of four key areas: Community, Environment, People and Marketplace.

What was the catalyst?
In business there has been a growing recognition of the need to take responsibility for social and environmental impacts of our actions. This makes sense because in the end there is no good in being a successful business in a failed world.

How do you approach sustainability?
How is the strategy developing?
Being sustainable is about taking responsibility for minimising the environmental and social impacts of the business. Initially this had positive business benefits; saving money was a direct benefit. A much greater driver for what we are doing is to ensure that we remain relevant. Today our clients are asking us about what we are doing to walk the talk on sustainability to the point that we have to integrate sustainability into our decision making and procurement processes.

What do you understand by Triple Bottom Line reporting?
Actively measuring, monitoring and reporting not just on economic but environmental and social performance.

Why do you think it is important?
You manage what you measure. So once there is a commitment to report on non-financial indicators the business starts to align its focus on these areas to drive improvement. Analysts and shareholders are already looking at companies’ progression of environmental and social performance.”

How do you conduct your reporting?
Increasingly companies are including non-financial data in Annual Reports which is a great way for delivering comparable data such as GHG data. Yet there is also a great deal of power in communicating stories and qualitative data about what achievements are occurring, particularly in community engagement. In the UK many companies are holding stakeholder forums to share and communicate their results.

What drives you personally?
What drives me is thinking of the positive impacts business can have. Many companies don’t see that they can be a force for good. The key is not to do it because the business feels compelled to but to do it but because it is right for business. If built into the way you do business you always see benefits
that come back to a business.

How has it improved business efficiency, minimised waste, decreased footprint, changed your processes?
In many ways. There has been a big focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. One great result is that we have reduced our air travel by 21% simply by improving the quality of the video conferencing facilities and encouraging people to think twice before booking flights. So not only a significant
reduction in emissions but a direct cash saving as well.

Has it had other benefits e.g. increased employee retention, improved employee engagement (quality of work life), focused effort on social responsibility?
Yes. In our recent annual staff survey, 76% of employees indicated they are happy with the way PwC is addressing its impacts on the environment. We have great staff engagement in this area.

How has it helped economic performance e.g. lower business costs, increased profits, minimised business risks and threats to reputation, increased shareholder confidence?
We have recently won an engagement to assist a client with the structure and reporting of their GHG accounts simply because they were aware that we ourselves had prepared a report. Learning by doing really makes us credible in the marketplace.

What role is design playing in driving sustainability?
Design plays a fantastic pivotal role in bringing about sustainable outcomes. By designing with sustainability in mind at the beginning of the process, new materials and energy efficiencies can be built into the production.

Fashion label or research lab? Both. Melbourne-based label MATERIALBYPRODUCT (MBP) takes a unique approach of inventing new design and manufacturing systems with the operations of a fashion house to create deceptively simple designs that provoke thought.

Founders Susan Dimasi and Chantal Kirby are on a mission, with environmental and social concerns at the forefront of their thinking, to create a brand relevant to today’s (and tomorrow’s) consumer. That consumer is someone who prioritises “a transparent supply chain, a relationship with the fashion house/designers (à la the haute couture model), and an understanding of design and construction processes”.

The notion that it’s not only about what you make but also how you make it drove the designers to develop their own language of techniques. These reduce their impact on the environment and better enable
their garments to be produced locally.

Cutting, joining and marking form the core of MBP’s techniques. “Cutting both sides of the scissors” combines positive (garment) and negative (waste) shapes to produce less waste, while technical markings and special bindings become decorative elements that highlight the process of production.

“From a cultural point of view, inventing our own techniques sustains fashion as a design process, not a styling process,” says Dimasi. Their decision to work with a more streamlined supply chain, to limit the number of cloths used and never work with manufacturers’ minimums has enabled short production runs – hence eliminating the excess stock, one of the environmental ‘dark clouds’ hovering over the fashion industry.

Which piece would best sum up their thinking? “A scarf, which is both a length of cloth and a garment,” responds Kirby. “A MATERIALBYPRODUCT scarf would be decorated/marked with the motif of a template, which guides how to cut, press and join this length of cloth into other garments – so this scarf is loaded
with a lot of possibilities.” Fashion designers or conceptual luxurists? Both.

Learn more at www.materialbyproduct.com

We are pleased to announce that this year Desktop are adding a new award to the Create Awards lineup — the Sustainability Award. Brought to you by Australian Paper, this award presents a chance for you and your workplace to shine and be recognised for your commitment to sustainability and sustainable design. The judging criteria is split into two parts: the first is based on the quality of work and the second part is an assessment of how sustainable your office is. For all the details visit:
www.desktopmag.com.au

What do bullets, custard, matches, shampoo, cigarettes, salami and beer have in common? They all contain parts of a pig. Yes, a pig. This is revealed in the book PIG 05049 by Dutch designer Christien Meindertsma in collaboration with Julie Joliat. It depicts all the products that are made from a single pig – pig #05049, which Meindertsma followed for three years. With its pig-hide colour cover complete with earmark, the book is a detailed exploration into the origin of raw materials.

“I chose a pig over a cow or chicken, because a pig produces the most varied collection of ingredients,” Meindertsma explains. “The book arose from my interest in the invisible lines that link raw
materials, producers and consumers worldwide. In a globalised world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to trace these lines, and the increasing complexity of the meat industry leaves the consumer little idea of the route an animal takes to many finished products.”

Like the animal itself, the book is deconstructed into Skin, Bones, Meat, Internal Organs, Blood, Fat and Miscellaneous, the pig’s parts meticulously documented with photos of 185 different products – including wallpaper, X-ray film, ice cream, crayons, paintbrush bristles… and so on. Meindertsma’s goal is simple: “What I wanted readers to take away was that the products we use all come from somewhere: they were grown somewhere and made by someone.”

You’d be forgiven for thinking that asking for a definition of sustainability is no longer safe. Like ‘digital’ – that other term most of us have trouble describing – sustainability is such a big part of our lives it’s assumed we understand it innately. But unlike digital, with its numbers lining up to provide concrete meaning, sustainability is open to interpretation, used to describe a company’s duty to shareholders as often as it is a responsibility to the environment. They’re both valid.

The most widely accepted definition states ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future’. Or, ‘the art of making sure the actions you make today can be repeated over and over again’. 1

Sustainability is not only about the environment or profits, resources, people, or community. The key to adapting and benefiting from sustainability is the integrated management of all these elements.

Matt Perry, a partner in Sydney-based sustainability agency Republic of Everyone, says “Business is people oriented, so we have a responsibility to people and the place they live, the planet.”

Behind this simple statement is a range of options and challenges that are both exciting and overwhelming.

Begin to accept the responsibilities of sustainable business by first looking at your organisation from an environmental perspective. How can you use resources more efficiently, and where can you reduce waste? There are dozens of tools available to help measure your footprint, and once you understand the various impacts your business has on the environment, decreasing costs and increasing efficiency becomes easy.

But you need to buy in.”In order to genuinely make a difference, you need your people on side,” Perry says.”That goes for senior guys giving you the mandate to make it a key pillar of business, right through to the foot soldiers who’ll ultimately make it happen.

From compulsory energy ratings on electrical appliances to carbon neutral beers, shareholders, consumers and employees are seeking improved environmental and social performance from businesses in every sphere. Last May, in the depths of the global financial crisis, Nielsen polling showed that while economic growth had become the most important social issue (for 55% of Australians polled), 51% of respondents put the environment as their first or second priority.2

“The consumer expects the brands to play their role. Increasingly, everyday people will expect them to have done due diligence. They may not understand it and analyse it, but they will expect it. Brands that take responsibility will win. In the end, they’ll be the most trusted,” Perry explains.

What starts with changing the lighting in your office can lead to significant savings and increased margins. Aiming for zero waste to landfill leads to a reduction in your environmental impact, and an added layer to your company’s story.

So don’t sit quietly at the back of the class hoping to pick it up as you go along. No one will lose points for asking for advice on getting involved.
1. Source: Peacock, Ben. “WTF Is Sustainability?” Republic of Everyone. 2008.
www.republicofeveryone.com/republications/wtfisustainability.pdf
2. Source: “Survey 1.” Nielsen Panorama, Australia. 2009.

One of Australia’s leading communication papers, Saxton has now become carbon neutral. Certified under the Department of Climate Change Greenhouse Friendly™ program, all the carbon emissions from the production of raw materials, manufacture, transport and disposal of the paper have been measured, reduced and then offset to make this a truly carbon neutral paper. And we’ve got the numbers and ISO methodology to back it up.

Showcasing Saxton, the recently launched “The Makers” campaign profiles a unique group of locals who, like the paper makers who made this paper, are passionate about their craft and the regional landscape they live and work in. The three part brochure takes you through a journey of the Shoalhaven region, allows you to meet some locals and see their crafts.

By specifying Saxton, you’re not only making the perfect choice for your communications and brochures but are also helping Australia’s regional communities and the environment. Saxton is available through Spicers Paper and is now ideally suited to digital printing with the recent launch of Saxton Digital.

For a copy of “The Makers” booklet visit www.spicerspaper.com.au

Welcome. We’re Australian Paper: a company that employs approximately 1200 Australians, mostly in regional Victoria and NSW. We’ve been making paper for about 70 years and have about 20% of the market in Australia. Sustainability is an integral element of our business. We think it may be the case for you as well.

In the year ahead we plan to use this space as well as online forums to create a sustainability discourse within the design and print industries. We’re going to invite creative leaders to share their stories and tell us what they’ve learnt so far, tease out the things that matter to you as designers and at the end of the year announce a Sustainability Award winner at the Desktop Create Awards. We’ll also tell you a little about our papers and encourage you to check them out.

We hope that with this special publication you’ll find inspiration, discover new ideas and join with us in unearthing the issues and opportunities that sustainability presents.