Terrapass is pleased to welcome our newest Carbon Balanced Business partner, CatPrint. CatPrint has balanced out the CO2 emissions resulting from its on-site natural gas usage, business travel and employee commuting. They have also purchased Green-e Energy Certified RECs for their on-site electricity usage, server electricity usage and estimated electricity usage by customers using their online printing services.
Every one at CatPrint is concerned about the environment. CatPrint began in the owner’s basement in 2004, and from day one they wanted to run a environmentally committed short-run printing company. Initially they purchased wind power credits from their home energy company. Terrapass has allowed them to easily expand their offset program to encompass their carbon footprint from a wide set of business activities. One thing that helps them is that they are very focused on getting waste out of their processes, so not only do their greeting cards, business cards, posters and fliers arrive at their customers quickly and inexpensively, they also have a much a lower carbon footprint than a traditional printer.
When they relocated CatPrint in 2006, they looked for an existing light industrial space that would be within a 10 minute drive of all their current employees. This helps lower their carbon footprint and makes for happier employees. They also encourage telecommuting, where practical. Their systems are all accessible online, so their team leads can all check on work status, even setup production runs, without leaving home.
From their customers’ perspective, working with CatPrint means that they do not have to make the usual two, or even three, trips to the printer to submit orders and review proofs, providing another carbon savings. Still, they realize that it takes electricity to power all those desktop computers, so as part of their commitment CatPrint has purchased an excess of carbon credits to help offset their customers electric use for the typical CatPrint order.
CatPrint’s Mitch VanDuyn “was relieved that Terrapass was able to help us quantify our entire carbon footprint so easily and provide the option to purchase both carbon offsets and RECs as part of our strategic approach to mitigate our environmental impact.”
Welcome CatPrint!
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