Q: What is best practice now?
A: Best practice in print sustainability means choosing printers that are systematically working towards carbon neutral printing and that are measuring and independently certifying progress.
In recent times, we’ve detected a move away from publishers being satisfied with good intentions and, instead, demanding meaningful actions from their printers.
Previously, publishers might have heard phrases from their printers like “we intend to” or “we will do this” or “in 20 years from now, we will do that”, but now, the language is changing because publishers are demanding to know what printers are doing now and for that to be measurable and verifiable.
With that in mind, there are three core areas of best practice.
Firstly, there needs to be a focus on full chain carbon transparency.
As per the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, there are three scopes one can report on. Typically, many companies are reporting on only scopes 1 and 2, which relate to a company’s direct and indirect energy emissions. These are obviously important but so too is scope 3, which measures emissions across a company’s full supply chain. For a printer, this includes paper and transport costs. All three scopes need to be reported on.
The second core area is energy efficiency.
Energy is the largest environmental overhead in printing, so printers should work to substantially reduce energy consumption and have that reduction verified through independent certifications, like ISO 50001 (the internationally recognised standard for energy management systems).
ISO 50001 commits the company to develop policies, establish targets, measure results, ongoing review and, crucially, to “continually improve energy management”. It demonstrates their carbon consciousness and their commitment to go lower, year after year.
Having ISO 50001 shows that the environmental claims a printer makes are not just marketing statements but are part of a credible sustainability programme.
The third core area for best practice print sustainability is responsible materials sourcing – making sure that all materials are sourced and used in the most environmentally friendly way. Again, it is critically important that this be properly documented.
For paper, it’s about ensuring the paper you purchase has FSC / PEFC certifications, which guarantee that the paper is coming from sustainably managed forests.
For inks, it’s about making sure that the inks you use carry the Blue Angel label, which assures that they are designed with sustainability in mind.
The requirement to source responsibly covers all areas of print production, including, for instance, ensuring that the aluminium in offset plates is fully recycled.
Q: How do you see it changing in the future?
A: Looking ahead, we see three distinct trends.
Firstly, we see a shift from reporting carbon calculations at company level to reporting them at product level. It will eventually become standard for printers to include emissions data for each and every print job they do, or quote for.
Secondly, we think that sustainability will become part of the decision-making criteria of the whole publishing sector, not just the bigger publishers. I would say that it’s already important for some of our bigger customers like The Guardian, Financial Times and New York Times, but less so, at the moment, for smaller publishers. This will change as governments impose environmental obligations on all companies and all publishers, large and small, will be looking to printers to help them meet their legal requirements. Only those printers that use independent calculation tools like ClimateCalc will be in a position to help...
The third one is a general move towards carbon neutral printing, where the best printers will accelerate their progress in reducing energy consumption, improving heat recovery systems and investing in renewable energy like solar.
There will be an increased focus on waste management programmes and the three Rs of environmental management: reduce (use less), reuse (where possible) and recycle (where not).
Those printers that manage to successfully achieve carbon neutrality will be able to use their circularity as a competitive advantage.
Q: What are your three top tips?
1. Demand to see the numbers from your printer: You cannot manage what you don't measure, so everything starts with the numbers. Once you measure, you can then work in a systematic way on reduction.
2. Design for sustainability ahead of the fact, not after it: make sustainability considerations part of your planning process. Discuss paper grammages, paper production sites, format efficiency et al with your print partner in advance.
3. Choose printers that are first movers; not those waiting for regulations to come. Printers that wait for legal deadlines to come in, run the risk of making last-minute, not properly thought through investment decisions. Of course, to be a first mover requires a strong financial base, something that we are fortunate enough to have…
About Roularta Printing
We are the largest offset printing company in Belgium, specialising in magazines and newspaper supplements for parent company Roularta Media Group and a range of UK and international clients, including Financial Times, The Guardian, The Economist, Bloomberg and The New York Times. We pride ourselves on being quality driven and environmentally aware.
Email: steven.renders@roulartaprinting.be
Web: www.roulartaprinting.be/en
This article was first published in Issue # 1 of Best Practice in Publishing, a new publication from InPublishing. Click here for links to the other ‘best practice’ articles from the publication.
