Tips for Environmentally Friendly Newsletters

Most of us want to keep our planet healthy and avoid contributing to environmental distress. For people responsible for their senior center’s or senior living community’s outreach efforts, it can be a bit of a balancing act.

We know that digital newsletters can reach a wide audience while saving paper, but what about seniors who prefer print newsletters? There's something substantial about the feel of paper between your fingers, and print newsletters serve an important role in senior center communications.

For these reasons and more, print newsletters remain popular. So, what can you do to make your newsletters environmentally friendly? We have a few suggestions that we implement with our newsletter services at LPi.

Ideas to Make Your Print Newsletters Kinder to the Environment

• Offer digital: Don’t assume just because your target audience is older, they aren’t receptive to receiving an email version of your newsletter. Ask members what their preferences are, and stop sending print copies to those who are okay with digital only. It may help to explain that digital community outreach publications save paper, ink, and the fuel associated with delivering them. With LPi, your newsletters are automatically made available on MyCommunityOnline.com, allowing your members to sign up to receive each new issue via email.
  
  
• Print on sustainable paper: Another way to make sure that your print newsletter is as kind as possible to the environment is to be mindful of what type of paper it is printed on. LPi prints using paper from an award-winning company that is certified sustainable.

• Use water-based ink: As the name implies, water-based ink is water soluble. Compared with traditional petroleum-based ink, it is much easier on the environment. In fact, the 55-gallon drums we use are 90% water! The ink we use to print newsletters is also completely free of any volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as glycols, esters, alcohols, ethers, and hydrocarbons. LPi is committed to using zero VOCs in our operations.
   
  
• Keep your mailing list clean: People move around a lot. That fact can make it tough to keep your mailing list up-to-date. While it can be a tedious job, you’ll save money on postage and printing costs, so try to stay on top of it. Check for duplicates often and delete them when you find them. If you receive returned copies of your newsletter in the mail, look for the post office label with the new address. That can help you decide whether the address should be updated or the name should be removed from the list. If your printer handles mailings for you, ask them for help.

• Use a printer who is committed to recycling: We are proud to say that LPi only has 1% paper waste across all of our facilities nationwide. Even better, that paper waste is recycled! Additionally, the barrels that our ink comes in are also recyclable and reusable. Once empty, we send them back to be refilled, thus significantly reducing our use of plastic.
  

Free Newsletters and Newsletter Resources?

Learn more about LPi’s ad-supported print and digital newsletter services on our website!

We also encourage you to spend a little time exploring the articles in the “Newsletter Tools” section of the LPi blog. We cover topics ranging from how to write a letter from the director to tips for designing a reader-friendly layout.