Tech Line

Going Green, the PFL Way

PFL is headquartered in an outdoor adventure paradise just an hour north of Yellowstone National Park, in Montana. You could say we take the great outdoors, environment, and sustainability very seriously. On any given weekend you will find our people on the slopes, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, hunting, kayaking, and more.

It's no surprise, then, that being serious about taking care of the environment is important to us. A love for the outdoors is part of our corporate DNA. This is evidenced by our green approach to the printing portion of our business.  

The Family Trees

Trees are everything in our business. That’s why we partnered with a unique company, PrintReleaf, to offset our timber usage. The PrintReleaf team works closely with industry experts in print and forestry to develop standards for measuring, offsetting, and verifying the successful reforestation of paper consumption. For approximately every 83 pounds of paper we use, PrintReleaf plants a tree to offset that paper usage. What’s more, the paper and corrugated products used in our facility are made from 50 percent recycled material and are 100 percent recyclable.

Trees are everything in our business. That’s why we partnered with a unique company, PrintReleaf, to offset our timber usage.

PFL is also unique in that we help customers reduce how much they print. Because our technology integrates with CRMs and MAPs, it creates highly personalized direct mail pieces that are sent to the right person at the right time with the right message. No more batch and blast. No more mass marketing direct mail. Therefore, our customers print less yet see higher engagement and ROI.

Running WITH the Wind

The PFL/Printing for Less headquarters is located in Livingston, Montana, at the north end of the Paradise Valley (Yellowstone TV show, anyone?). It’s just 54 miles from the entrance to Yellowstone National Park. As such, our hometown is insanely windy—which we love. Why? Because this great natural resource, the wind, entirely powers our HQ and production facility.  

We’ve also managed to go green, if you will, with our printing inks—most of which are created from soy. The use of soy-based inks has been a standard practice at PFL for some time. This is a cleaner variant than older generation inks and is much more sustainable and less toxic. This makes the printing production a much cleaner process all around.

But that’s not all we do to stay green. Printing For Less’s low-energy LED lights cure ink faster, further reducing the carbon footprint. We have also eliminated harsh chemicals that include VOCs (volatile organic compounds.

Less Waste, More Sustainability

The result of our efforts? All of this has made us a truly green and sustainable company, going well beyond what many print-manufacturing companies are doing today. Our production facility is 57 percent less wasteful than the industry standard.

In today’s corporate world, sagacious companies are making a concerted effort to help bring about a more sustainable world. We all must be mindful of our efforts and impact. At PFL and Printing for Less, we are extremely proud of the work we’ve done and the choices we’ve made to be great environmental stewards. But for us it might be easy: When you live in paradise, it’s a no brainer to take care of it.