Environment

How a more efficient approach to colour management can dramatically boost your environmental credentials and bottom line by cutting ink use and waste.

Somehow we seem to have assumed that being environmentally friendly is going to cost us more. This idea is so endemic to the way we think that green policies have become one of the biggest casualties of the current economic crisis. Yet one of the biggest threats to our planet’s health is the sheer amount of waste that we all produce. It’s no surprise that reducing waste is also a pretty good way of increasing profit margins.

Verdigris founderLaurel Brunner explains what steps are afoot to help you develop a measurable environmental policy, with a focus on ISO 16759.

It can be hard for individual printers to develop a measurable environmental policy but the forthcoming ISO 16759 should address this. For a growing number of printers, sustainability and working to protect the environment are becoming more important. This is not just because many print company owners believe in helping the industry to be more environmentally friendly, but also because customers are putting them under increased pressure to do so.

Did you miss out on the Planet Friendly talks that formed part of the Explore Conference at Fespa Digital? If so, here are the edited highlights.

Printers attending Fespa Digital this year really missed out. As part of its Explore Conference during the show, Fespa ran a two-day Planet Friendly series of talks, those on the first day built around the theme ‘Why be green?’ and on the second around ‘How to be green?’ Attendance was pitiful, leaving speakers who had honed their presentations to a print audience talking largely to other presenters, journalists and representatives from interested exhibitors - a shame because the environment, and print companies’ attitudes and behaviour towards it, is clearly becoming an ever bigger issue with huge potential impact on how the print industry as a whole and the specific print businesses within it progress.

EMAS stands for ‘Eco Management and Audit Scheme’ but you can be forgiven for not realising that – it’ not exactly well known. But it’s about to be, so listen up.

EMAS. Never heard of it? You will. According to those in the know, by which I mean environmental specialists, we can expect a massive surge in interest in this cross-sector environmental standard during 2012, partially boosted by the BPIF having secured funding to help printers work to achieve it. If you already have a decent EMS system in place and gone through ISO14001 accreditation then you’ve already done the legwork – but EMAS will put details of your environmental policies and targets in the public domain, and therefore can be used as a powerful sales tool for those of you aiming to make money off the back of your ‘green’ credentials and use them to competitive advantage.

John Pymer, managing director of Certification International, explains how printing companies can unlock the benefits of introducing better environmental practices.

Since 2008, Certification International has seen significant growth in the number of companies integrating environmental practices into their management systems. The number of certificates issued for ISO 14000 has increased by 300%, and many of these have been achieved by companies in the printing industry.

Will you be putting EcoPrint Europe Live 2012 in your diary? You should, and here’s why…

“EcoPrint is an idea whose time has come.” So says Marcus Timson, director of EcoPrint Europe Live 2012, which will take place in Berlin next September. But then he would. The point is, what do you think?

With the trend towards greater disclosure and transparency print companies are going to have to get to grips with sustainable reporting. It’s a confusing field, but there are guidelines…

Sustainable reporting: two words that make so many directors feel slightly queasy. You might feel you have a thorough grasp of your company’s impact on the environment. You may even be right. But the challenge is increasingly not just to be green, but to be seen to be green and to be able to prove how green you are. And for the purposes of sustainable reporting, a company has to take a more holistic view of its impact on the world around it, so not just how much carbon you emit, or water you used, but how many employees died at work last year!

Thanks to research by Justyna Spurtacz as part of the Sustainability Driven Innovation Program based at Cranfield University, SMEs in the print sector have a new tool to embrace sustainable innovation. So will you use it?

‘How can ongoing sustainable innovation can be achieved in the printing industry? Building strategic tools for SMEs.’ That was the title of the project Justyna Spurtacz set herself as part of the Sustainability Driven Innovation Program funded by the European Regional Development Fund at Cranfield University. This September saw her release the findings from her months of research and evaluation, which includes a new Sustainable Innovation Framework (SIF) and Sustainability-led Service Blueprint (SSB) which will get an airing here, but will they prompt you to take sustainable innovation seriously?