The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner
ISO TC130 WG11, the committee and working group responsible for the environmental impact of print, want your help. We are working on a new standard for measuring the amount of energy a digital press uses. This document is an important and necessary companion to ISO 16759, which outlines how to calculate the carbon footprint of print media.
This new standard, ISO 20690, will plug a serious hole in how we work out not only the environmental impact of a digital printing device, but also how much it costs to run. At the moment the best we can do is to estimate operating costs, based on a device’s power needs as stated in the technical specifications. This means that no two energy calculations are likely to be done in the same way, so it makes comparisons virtually impossible.
ISO 20690 is intended for companies who want to compare print production methods, on the basis of the energy used in a typical print run. This could be print buyers and publishers, or printers wanting to invest in additional presses to increase their production capacity. Manufacturers are also keen on knowing the energy numbers. All of these groups want to be able to compare different digital presses not just on the basis of their speed, uptime and quality, but also their energy usage.
The comparisons must be fair, so energy usage calculations should be determined unambiguously. It must be possible to compare devices across press categories, including large and small format machines, cut sheet and continuous feed, roll-to-roll, flatbed or hybrid engines. There must also be a means of handling exceptions, which will be important as digital processes invade applications such packaging and label production.
This standard must make sense for all digital print media production machines, plus new technologies coming into the graphics industry. Developing a coherent and relevant document is not easy, so the editors are encouraging interested parties to help. They have devised a test of the document, intended to see if and how it will work in practice. ISO 20690 will be of particular interest to digital press manufacturers, however printing companies will also want to use it. The test for ISO 20690’s applicability will also determine how comparisons can be made. All of this will help the document editors to understand how ISO 20690 will work in the field, so that we can make it as robust and useful as possible.
The materials and methods used in graphics applications are constantly driving down the environmental impact of print. However unless we are able to measure such things as energy usage we cannot quantify it or measure improvements. We need benchmarks to help us improve energy usage, so that we can constantly reduce requirements and waste. ISO 20690 is a step along that road.
This blog is yours to use if you want, as long as you fully credit the Verdigris supporters who make it possible: Agfa Graphics, Digital Dots, EFI, Fespa, Heidelberg, HP, Kodak, Mondi, Ricoh, Splash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.