Green tinted glasses

Paper-based print continues to dominate the portfolio of marketing tools available. Just as the premature demise of the newspaper has been incorrectly predicted for years, the introduction of digital options has had little effect on the sheer volume of printed publicity generated by arts organisations. As London’s leading distributor of print, London Calling takes its environmental responsibilities seriously. Over the past two years we have embarked on the ‘greening’ of our 22-vehicle fleet – we now have one electric van, nine Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) vehicles, and we’ve just introduced our first bicycle. The rest of the fleet is diesel, but will be systematically replaced over the next two years. With two more LPG vehicles on order we’re well on the way having half our fleet converted to greener methods of fuel consumption. We have also geographically zoned our drivers’ journeys to minimise the distance each van travels, reducing fuel consumption by as much as 50% and in turn saving money. We have installed a paper compacter so that any returned print can be packaged far more efficiently, reducing the number of monthly collections from 15 to 1, significantly reducing fuel usage and even creating a new revenue stream. Internally, we recycle office paper, and source recycled material for leaflet holders and publicity material. We have established a ‘green’ committee that spans every department, in order to involve staff in any changes we introduce. Within five years we aim to reduce our carbon footprint by 60%, and we are well on the way to meeting this target.

The biggest impact London Calling can have on the health of the planet is to help our clients – over 1,000 arts organisations – to minimise their carbon footprints. In partnership with the Mayor of London’s Green Programme for London’s theatres, we are offering them a blueprint to reduce the environmental impact of their marketing campaigns without reducing their effectiveness. This involves using a combination of eco-friendly print and paper in a more intelligent way. Options include recycled and Forest Stewardship Council paper, non-chlorine bleached paper, vegetable oil-based inks, acid free or low acid printing and water-based finishing techniques. Furthermore, through careful characterisation and segmentation of display sites we help our clients to focus on their target audiences, thereby reducing print quantity.
London Calling has been working with Arcola Theatre to devise and test a package of sensible green changes and research-based marketing techniques. The result is a combination of measures to increase the effectiveness of print whilst enabling more sustainable use of resources. Dr Ben Todd, Executive Director of Arcola, sees this as “… an important step on our journey towards being the world’s first carbon neutral theatre. We are very satisfied with eco-friendly paper and print and delighted by the new possibilities that more intelligent distribution offers.”
London Calling has also gained, within its digital division, experience of using Bluetooth to target younger, more contemporary audiences. Bluetooth allows us to wirelessly communicate with mobile phones in a venue so that recipients can choose to download our video, audio or simple graphic files. This paperless approach promises to be a more sustainable means of communicating with this hard-to-reach audience. Our research to date shows that we can obtain a positive acceptance of almost 20% of messages broadcast. This compares very favourably with alternative communication vehicles. At a time when it is widely and regrettably accepted that the UK government will fail to meet its own 2010 target of cutting C02 emissions by 20% from 1990 levels, London Calling and Arcola Theatre are putting sustainability at the core of their business plans. We are not interested in ‘greenwashing’ – we want to embrace this challenge. We believe the next ten years will be the decade that people look back on and say, “that was when we woke up smelt the coffee”. (Fairtrade, of course).