Find out how greener printing doesn't cost the earth
Fujifilm’s roadshow brought together a number of specialists to discuss different aspects of the developing environmental agenda. For those who couldn’t attend, here’s a brief report on the topics they covered.
Attendance at the roadshow events organised by Fujifilm in February showed that printers from across the UK are taking an increasingly keen interest in green issues, out of a desire to protect the environment, in response to legislative and customer pressures and in many cases, to improve efficiency.
The first speaker of the day was environmental consultant Clare Taylor, whose presentation underlined the unsustainability of current practices and the high levels of waste inherent in manufacturing, while pointing out that the print industry has always recycled, even if it could do so a lot more.
In addition to outlining the challenges presented by climate change, loss of biodiversity, air and water pollution, Taylor commented on the state of forest resources and the need to ‘connect the forest to the customer'. She explained how simple measures can be very effective, such as stacking of ink tins in skips to reduce the costs and energy requirements of waste disposal, while standards such as ISO 14001 provide tools to get to grips with these issues.
James Diamond of government agency envirowise discussed factors driving the green agenda, from Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) departments in multinationals to EU-level directives and initiatives. He presented a number of case studies in which printers had taken advantage of environmentally friendly practices and technology to not only improve their performance - one Cornwall-based printer had saved £70,000 a year - but also to turn this to their benefit as a marketing tool.
He also pointed out that waste directly costs money - a ton of paper in a skip may have cost £600 or more to buy and a further £50 to dispose of, for example - typically amounting to some 1.8 per cent of turnover. Reducing this figure is a case of making many small savings.
Wrap it up
Speaking specifically about paper was Brent Fowler of WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme), set up in 2000 by the UK government to advocate the use of recycled paper. Fowler revealed the savings that have been made so far, such as the 5.8 million tonnes of material that have been diverted from landfill and a 1.3 million tonne reduction in carbon emissions.
Now that there's a good range of recycled stocks for most types of print, he suggested that the best way to sell print on recycled paper was to promote its merits to customers' CSR departments, and pointed out that in many cases there is no cost premium.
WRAP's presentation was followed by John Stack of Print Media Certification who set out to demystify the proliferating standards relevant to print. ISO 14001, for example, can be a powerful tool for reducing waste and pollution and therefore running a more efficient business, but he stressed that it's important to get your certification from an accredited certification body.
This was followed by a discussion of the FSC and PEFC paper sourcing certifications, clarifying the aims and scope of each and introducing the Chain of Custody concept and explaining the stages that are applicable to printers seeking these certifications.
Wild wastes
Identifying and reducing waste in the print process was also the key theme of the presentation from Richard
Gray of Vision in Print, who said that the true costs of waste are ‘wildly underestimated' as printers think about waste materials but not the associated handling costs. He presented a waste minimisation ranking with complete elimination of a material as the cheapest option, via re-use and recycling, with disposal as the most expensive. Gray proposed simple solutions for ink waste reduction and opportunities for generating revenue from waste in the face of rocketing landfi ll charges. He also made the case for giving responsibility for driving waste reduction programmes to staff teams (with management support); examples of firms saving six-figure sums through a waste analysis and reduction process were given.
The last presentation of the day came from a printer who has put most of this into practice. Dave Spooner of Breckland Print, an East Anglian printer that has held ISO 14001 for ten years, admitted that the requirement for continuous improvement grew more demanding after such a period, with each new purchase having to be scrutinised carefully.
Having achieved FSC certification in 2007, the goal for this year is to go carbon-neutral and to be able to give customers a ‘carbon cost' for each job. Spooner too stressed that staff involvement was critical to success, as was close monitoring of waste and consumables usage to spot faulty equipment or items left on unnecessarily.
