The current project for Carbon Balanced Publications and Paper is based in Vietnam
Opal Print has become the South West’s first certified Carbon Balanced Publication Printer – one of only nine printers in the UK able to carbon balance the emissions of the whole printed job – through World Land Trust.
Keith Lunt, Opal Print managing director, explained, ‘Externally verified, our unavoidable business emissions were quantified at 66 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) a year. These annual emissions are now balanced by World Land Trust preserving 46,000 square metres of ecologically important habitat.’
The international conservation charity protects the world’s most biologically important and threatened habitats acre by acre. Through land purchase of ecologically important standing forests under threat of clearance, carbon is locked that would otherwise be released. These protected forests are then able to continue absorbing carbon from the atmosphere, referred to as REDD (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation).
This is now recognised as one of the most cost-effective and swiftest ways to arrest the rise in atmospheric CO2 and global warming effects. The current project for Carbon Balanced Publications and Paper is based in Vietnam, protecting an important area of the Annamite Mountains, preserving many endangered species.
Sir David Attenborough, patron of the World Land Trust said, ‘The money that is given to World Land Trust, in my estimation, has more effect on the wild world than almost anything I can think of.’
Opal Print can now use the Carbon Balanced Publication logo as a mark of integrity, showing that the emissions of the whole printed job have been balanced. Furthermore, it can provide clients with certificates quantifying the CO2e balanced and land area preserved for every print job, which an organisation can use in its environmental reporting and marketing.
