Green stands for environment protection. But which shade of green suits you?
March 24, 2010 (Germany) - There are no ready-made environment-friendly print products. Every printing company has its own possibilities to make the process chain greener. Aaris Sherin presents a package of sustainability measures that go well beyond today‘s usual certification.
These days customers want green printing but they also want the best price possible. The market for environmentally preferable print services has grown exponentially in the last 5 years. And despite the global economic downturn, customers want to be able to show that they are being as sustainable as possible. To do this, large corporations and governments have begun to require more environmentally sound print production from their vendors. In tough economic times the utilization of new technology and materials and offering advanced services can provide a winning recipe for retaining clients and taking advantage of new markets.
Many customers really don’t know the difference in services offered and often hesitate to pay more even if those options are tied to values that they want to align themselves with. It is probably unrealistic for every designer and print buyer to fully understand the specific areas they should be targeting and it is often difficult to compare the services of one printer against another. This is both a challenge and also an opportunity for printers.
A wide variety of environment-compatible measures. Some of the most common improvements that printers make are zero landfill input, FSC and/or ISO certifications, eco-friendly substrates for printing, implementation of waterless printing, and the use of eco-friendly inks and press washing agents. Listing the various touch points for environmental printing and addressing how your company is dealing with each can be a great way for customers to understand what services are available. Transparent reporting of information and clearly stated benchmarks with accompanying assessments are key. But it is also helpful to make that information easily accessible so customers are able to compare and to understand their options quickly. Offering professional consulting that goes beyond discussing the specifications of a particular job is a great way to make your company attractive to overworked print buyers and designers.
Achieving sustainable print production step by step. For many companies, shifting to more sustainable print production may be a long-term goal that is achieved in incremental steps rather than all at once. Egmont, a publisher of children‘s books in the UK, decided that they wanted to eliminate paper from their supply chain that does not come from sustainable forestry. They worked with their printers to identify where all the pulp in their supply chain was sourced and were able to choose better materials without changing vendors. For the Publishing Services at the United Nations, the solution to greening printing was quite different. Initially they thought that attaining certifications for their five in-house printing divisions would be the first step to sustainable printing.
Instead, after a lengthy analysis, they found that moving to digital prepress and offering digital printing on FSC or recycled substrates for small runs would have the most immediate impact on their environmental performance. Independently certifying their facilities is still a goal but now it is part of an integrated plan that includes easily achieved efficiencies and the use of new materials and equipment.
With all the talk of recycled and FSC-certified substrates it is easy to overlook the fact that sustainability can mean different things in different situations and that there isn’t one solution or set of steps that will be right for every job or client.
The three-phase approach to sustainability, which specifies the balanced use of social, economic and environmental resources is more powerful and also more flexible than a narrowly defined concern for the environment. Offering both environmentally and socially responsible services provide opportunities to align oneself with the values of sustainably minded consumers. That’s good news because being the go-to company for sustainable solutions has always been good for people and the planet. Now it’s good for your business as well.
Reference:
Source: PIRA International Ltd., Sustainable Print in a Dynamic Global Market: What going green means, 2009
(This article is taken from manroland "expressis verbis" 2010 Edition, written by AarisSherin, whom is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at the St. John’s University in Queens,New York.)
