Ann Elsen, an energy consultant, hired Merrick Towle Communications to brand her company. The agency’s branding strategy focused on Ann Elsen as an individual expert partner who can lead her clients through the ongoing political, social and cultural shift towards environmental responsibility. She is able to navigate the complex world of energy consulting due to her years of relationship-building throughout the energy industry.
In order to demonstrate her commitment to environmental responsibility, Merrick Towle Communications ensured her printed material utilized green printing techniques.

The Elsen Energy Consulting Stationery has been carefully designed and specified to minimize the impact of its production on the environment. Listed below are the considerations Merrick Towle Communications took into account during the creative process to create a green marketing package:

• The stationery design uses light ink coverage to avoid the need for additional coatings on the pieces. Recycling this stationery yields a higher percentage of paper fiber and produces less waste.
• The stationery paper contains 100% post-consumer waste, which means the original fiber reached its end user (consumer) and was then recycled, rather than containing fiber content that was simply scrap from the manufacturing process.
• Green printing was achieved by choosing paper which is also process chlorine free – neither elemental chlorine nor its derivatives were used to re-process or bleach this paper. Elemental chlorine produces, among other toxic elements, dioxins, which have been labeled by the EPA as a known carcinogen. Many papers are still bleached using a chlorine derivative, such as chlorine dioxide, which greatly reduces the amount of dioxins produced by up to 90%, but does not eliminate them completely.
• The paper is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified. This means that everyone in the chain of custody, from the forest to the printer, has been certified by the FSC to handle resources in a responsible manner. The goal of the FSC is to steer the marketplace for wood-based products away from the harvesting of old growth and rain forests, deforestation, and the violence against indigenous peoples that has historically accompanied the logging industry.
• The inks used to print this stationery package are primarily vegetable oil-based instead of petroleum-based. In addition to being derived from a renewable resource, these inks have very low volatile organic compounds, or VOCs: substances that readily evaporate into the atmosphere at temperature of use, causing pollution and global warming.

Art Director: Jason Knauer
Designer: Benjamin Jancewicz

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