Reasons to be cheerful

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Consolidation in the graphics industry has been a fact of life for many years now. It’s tempting to blame the losses on the onslaught of digital media and delivery, despite it’s heavy carbon footprint compared to print. Consolidation is tragic for its many victims and their families, but … Read more

The European Union’s Green Deal

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner In December 2019, the European Union (EU) announced that it is investing €100 billion to become the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050. By climate-neutral the EU means that emissions will be balanced with the removal of warming gases from the atmosphere. This is an ambitious undertaking. Much … Read more

COP25 What did we learn?

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner It’s been a depressing few weeks when it comes to making progress on climate change, for the graphics business as well as everyone else. The recent COP25 was widely panned for the lack of consensus on some pretty basic issues, and for a paucity of outcomes for the … Read more

Print volumes still on the slide

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Newspapers are struggling still as they wrestle with new business models that shift from printed copy sales to digital delivery. The environmental impact of digital media is largely unquantified, but obviously digital media generate emissions throughout their lives. Print on the other hand, has a one-off carbon footprint … Read more

HP Indigo inks are compostable

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner HP Indigo has long been criticised for the tenacity of its inks when it comes to deinking printed matter for recycling. It’s a controversial discussion guaranteed to raise passions, but there are alternatives to deinking digital prints for recycling and one of the latest gaining attention is composting. … Read more

Process free platesetting continues to advance

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Process free platesetting is the next step in cutting processing steps from print production lines and making them more environmentally sustainable. Going process free does away with the plate processor, chemicals, disposal concerns and of course the man power and time involved in prepress.  The main developers of … Read more

Ink recipes keep evolving

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner Ink contributes only a miniscule amount to the overall carbon footprint of printed matter. But its use, development, manufacture and removal in readiness for substrate recycling can have a substantial impact. The use part is especially important since it can affect operators’ health and influence other aspects of … Read more

Printed newspapers inching closer to the exit

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner USA Today is one of that country’s few national newspapers. Others include the Wall Street Journal and the Christian Science Monitor, but unlike these titles USA Today may be phasing out its printed versions. There are only around 730,000 copies printed for a nation of over 350 million … Read more

Shifting conversations

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner We have always been strong supporters of the printing industry and its sustainability. We have encouraged the use of print as a sustainable communications medium because it is mostly based on a renewable resource, paper. It is still highly sustainable as a medium, however it is increasingly clear … Read more

Where do the climate change numbers come from?

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner We are told with increasing shrillness that something must be done about climate change. And it must, but too often we have dismissed the calls to arms simply because we can. We can hide behind the lazy idea that it’s not as bad as it seems, that someone, … Read more