The Global Sustainability Index

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Corporate Knights is a Canadian research and publishing company dedicated to reporting on sustainable capitalism. Since 2005 it has compiled an annual list of the top one hundred most sustainable companies in the world. Corporate Knight conducts its evaluations independently and companies make no submissions, except to verify … Read more

Plastic recycling

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Packaging printed onLow Density Polyethylene (LDPE) is changing. LDPE is the cheapest and most commonly used recyclable plastic but it takes hundreds of years to biodegrade. This is in part why various packaging print buyers are moving to alternatives and a key candidate is plastics made from potato … Read more

Design with the environment in mind

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner A couple of weeks ago we talked about the need for designers to think about the environment when planning media projects. This is especially important in the context of deinking and recycling. But it goes further than thinking about substrates, inks, energy and printing processes. Water solvents, transportation, … Read more

Is it time to think bigger with eco labelling?

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Circular economies are all well and good, but it takes dialogue at many levels, not least between governments. The urgency of dealing with plastic waste was illustrated in a recent report that a small town in Malaysia has become a primary dumping ground for plastic waste. The place … Read more

Paper industry still falling behind

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner We’ve been working recently with people from the paper industry and it’s been enlightening. The paper business has a long and lofty history: it’s hundreds of years old; it’s been a terrific earner for its shareholders over the years; and it’s been a success story for most of … Read more

Sustainability by design

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner All the talk about building circular economies can seem very remote from the day to day realities of living life and work’s daily grind. It’s easy to think of creating a circular economy as someone else’s gig. But that is too convenient and ultimately a little lazy because, … Read more

Digital printing for textiles a bold new future

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Manufacturers of digital printing presses have been eyeing up the textile market for a while. Both direct-to-garment (DtG) printing and the printing of textiles for other purposes have been attracting attention. This makes sense given the range of technologies available and the dynamism in the digital printing business: … Read more

Apple taking environmental lead

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner The graphics industry has had a long and mostly affectionate relationship with Apple Computer. The company’s technology was one of the key foundation stones of the desktop publishing revolution (DTP) in 1984, along with Aldus PageMaker and the Adobe PostScript page description language that is the antecedent of … Read more

Kodak’s Sonora Plate Green Leaf Awards 2018

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Kodak has been running the Sonora Plate Green Leaf Awards for the last six years, despite other distractions and challenges. The awards underscore how seriously Kodak takes it’s environmental commitment and how important it is for this industry to raise its sustainability game. The Sonora Green Leaf awards … Read more

Is plastic packaging really on the out?

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Plastic packaging is changing at breakneck speed. Reduction in its use is high on the European Union’s (EU) agenda and big brands are looking for alternatives. They need to satisfy environmentally aware shareholders and customers and find alternatives to plastic packaging. But none of the steps taken so … Read more