Ever wonder what’s in the adhesive that keeps the label stuck on your shampoo bottle? Jeff Salisbury does, too. His flexographic printing company, Label Impressions, is going the extra mile to find greener labelmaking materials and technologies. And, as he tells SLM, corporate clients including Williams-Sonoma and Clif Bar appreciate the effort. (To listen to our conversation with Jeff, click here.)

SLM: For the folks at home, what's flexographic printing and what are some of its biggest environmental impacts?

Jeff: Flexographic printing is a roll-to-roll print process for generating high-volume labels. It's the way most pressure-sensitive labels are produced.

It's not a particularly dirty process, but at the end of the day we're printing labels for products that will eventually end up in landfill. About two years ago, when my daughter was born - during Earth Week, no less - I began doing some soul-searching. I didn't want to keep printing something that just ends up being trash. That's when I started looking into ways we could green up our labels.

Since then we've phased out the use of certain chemicals, lowered our greenhouse gas emissions and offset the remainder through carbon offsets, and begun sourcing about 13% of our energy from renewable sources. We've also earned certification from the Forest Stewardship Council and are currently exploring greener alternatives for adhesives and other labelmaking materials.

SLM: How are you finding these greener materials? Is it a process of trial and error?

Jeff: It is. It almost becomes a second job. I've got a small army of people here who've really embraced the idea of sustainability, and they're always on the lookout for greener alternatives. There are thousands of blogs out there where you can read up on the pros and cons of all kinds of environmental preferable materials. There's a tradeoff for everything, and it's our job to find the materials with the least amount of environmental impact and test them as label materials.

We not only have to find materials that are green but also that perform. Our clients include Williams-Sonoma, Clif Bar, and Hain-Celestial - companies that are looking for greener alternatives, but the materials have got to work, and clients expect them to cost the same or less than traditional materials.

Keep in mind, some of these labels have to perform under pretty difficult conditions. For example, we do a lot of shampoo and personal care labels that have to hold up to moisture and contamination from other chemicals. But we've succeeded in finding greener materials that actually perform quite well in these circumstances.

SLM: You've mentioned working with some pretty big names in sustainable business, but I notice that Label Impressions makes no mention of its environmental efforts on the company website. Why not? Seems like a great way to differentiate yourself in the marketplace, especially now that a lot of "mainstream" companies are also looking for ways to green their supply chains.

Jeff: Greenwashing is a serious charge, and I think you need to start walking the talk before you start talking the talk. Label Impression has only been on this path for two years, and I still feel like a bit of a novice. We know a lot more than our competitors, but we're still cautious about how we sell green. Right now the team is focused on consulting with clients about green materials and showing them some of the alternatives that are out there. We're not necessarily touting our own efforts - yet - because there's so much we have left to do. We only just added a small green leaf to our logo and, to be honest, I was even a little nervous about that.

Clients really do ask the hard questions, and you have to be prepared to answer them. A company like Patagonia or Williams-Sonoma will rake you over the coals. I've been asked some extremely difficult questions myself.

SLM: Like what?

Jeff: There's a material called FiberStone that's made from calcium carbonate, and we're the only company that I'm aware that's found a way to coat it with adhesive and convert it into a label material. It's a complicated process that took us about a year to figure out. When we go out and tell clients that Fiberstone requires no water to manufacture and process and has just a third the carbon footprint of virgin paper, we tend to get hit with a lot of questions. They want proof. They want to know whether the material is mined or quarried, and from where. They want to know about the economic situation of the people who did the quarrying.

SLM: What's next on your plate of sustainability initiatives?

Jeff: I'm on the board of environmental best practices at the Tag and Label Manufacturers Institute (TLMI), and we're working on green standards for label printing. There's a lot of misinformation out there right now. Each one of TLMI's members probably has a little bit of information, and putting it all together on this committee will help our entire industry get greener. I think that's good for everybody, including our clients.