Challenge: Working with short deadline in carbon neutral way

It can be challenging to produce in climate-neutral ways under tight deadlines. Getting the right offer takes time.

To give an example: toward the end of our project, we decided to print our exhibition guidebook rather than just have it online. We had a tight deadline but found a relatively climate-neutral method—risograph printing—for the job. However, we learned that the risograph printer would need more time to produce the work than we had, so we decided we needed to print elsewhere, regardless of the climate costs. We ended up going with a trusted offset printer in Leipzig, in order to have the booklet ready for the opening. Although the printer is not officially green-certified, when we called them, it turned out they could provide recycled paper and were using sustainable technology with mineral-free ink. We were lucky to find a printer who could deliver quickly, at a good price, and in a sustainable manner—which is not an easy task, as sustainable printers often have long wait times due to high demand.

Between the time needed to research the always-not-straightforward climate footprint of potential producers, and the time green production methods sometimes require, it’s not always possible to produce in a carbon-neutral way on a short deadline.