White Glove

GP: How green is your business - what green business practices do you embrace?

WGB: We know that in the sea of claims, there are many shades of green.  Our company focuses on three areas:  product development, workplace and personal.  Our products are very green and we also stand behind them with a lifetime guarantee.  We’ve studied and refined not only our use of materials but also our suppliers.  Within our workplace, we recycle inkjet cartridges and keep fluorescent fixtures turned off.  Computers and printers are turned off until needed.  Our facility and employees are based in Southern California, not half a world away.  Personally, my partner and I are both green photographers:  we offer online proofing, White Glove books, we use rechargeable batteries and inkjet prints.  Ah yes, I almost forgot -  I drive a dirty Prius.

GP: How green are your products - what green products/components do you offer? 

WGB: The books we make are engineered to be green from the inside out.  The cover board is recycled FSC certified and manufactured locally.  Our glue is non-toxic, non-hazardous, acid-free and biodegradable.  Our inkjet printing uses low v.o.c. solvent free aqueous pigment inks, on PEFC certified matte paper.  Our cover materials are divided into two shades of green (you guessed it - green and greener).  Our book cloth is acid-free and made of a cotton/linen mix instead of rayon.  Many of our cover materials are acid-free, lignin-free and chlorine-free.  

GP: Why did you choose to offer green products and implement green business practices?

WGB: From our first day in business, White Glove’s product line has been green-minded.  We used digital presses for the first 3 years, then switched to more eco-friendly inkjet printing for the past 10 years.  Our glue and cover board has never changed.  It’s not so much that we ever had to make a switch to be green; we’ve tried over the years to refine our materials and methods whenever we see opportunities to go greener.

GP: How has offering green products and implementing green business practices affected your company?

WGB: Being completely honest, printing on inkjet is far costlier than digital presses or photo paper.  Hand-made books also take more time to produce than machine-made books.  That means that maintaining green practices places a premium on our products in relation to less eco-friendly products.  It’s the same if you buy fresh locally grown produce from a co-op instead of the supermarket – you’re going to spend a little more, but you’re doing the planet a favor.  White Glove is committed to staying green, even if it makes our books more expensive to produce in relation to our “less green” competition. 

GP: What are your hopes for a greener photographic industry?

WGB: White Glove was the original fine art book, established and introduced in 1996.  We were not only the most eco-friendly book, we were the first book of its kind in the US.  Today there are dozens of “lay flat coffee table books” available to professional photographers – so many choices that it is frankly confusing to discern between them.  Most don’t make references to their “greenness” at all, for good reason.  Our hope is that photographers will educate themselves about their choices with respect to green products – books, albums, prints, frames, etc.  I believe that those of us who remain committed can really transform professional photography into a much greener industry.

GP: What is your favorite eco website or eco-product that we may not have heard of?

WGB: This site has nothing to do with photography or books, but might be interesting for your readers and is a pretty cool resource for renewable and compostable food containers and utensils: http://www.ecoproductsstore.com 

GP: Thanks so much to Larry Crandall of White Glove Books for taking the time to answer our questions!

Special Offer: Order one, and get a second book free (same size; covers may be different). More info here.

**White Glove clients can receive 30% off GP certification with code WHTGLV til Jan. 1, 2011.**

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