• Ad Age, Friday, September 8, 2006 11:45 AM

Various magazines have published "green" issues to bring attention to environmental concerns and global warming, but none has gone as far as The Economist to address the impact of a publication on the ecosystem. A deputy editor at the London-based newsweekly wanted to do something unique for a 16-page green section on newsstands this week. So she arranged for the spread to be carbon-neutralized through the Carbon Neutral Co. in London. "I thought it would be the journalistically interesting thing to do," says Emma Duncan, deputy editor. The process entails calculating all the carbon dioxide burned from all the traveling, production, printing and distribution of the issue. Carbon Neutral could then trap the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide--118 tons--in a U.S. mine as a way of neutralizing the emissions. It cost about $1,200. And some longtime advertisers are involved, notes Paul Rossi, North American publisher of the magazine. "With our special reports, we tend to talk to existing advertisers that have an interest in the subject." Dow Chemical Co. and forest-product company Weyerhaeuser signed on right away. Neither advertises a lot, but this was "absolutely a sweet spot of reaching people they need to reach very effectively from our standpoint," he says.

Read the whole story at Ad Age »