The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner
It has been a trying year for most of us. This is mainly because of the difficulties of keeping up with everything, from Fespa, drupa and EcoPrint, through to the daily tsunami of news and information hitting us from every direction. It has also been tough because of the slowing worldwide economy. For all of us who care about the environmental impact of print, it has been particularly hard to keep print’s sustainability at the top of companies’ agendas.
We do see some extremely encouraging signs however, most recently HP’s new factory in southern Israel and Heidelberg’s latest carbon neutral announcement. The HP Indigo ink factory in Kiryat Gat is built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) specifications and is the first of its kind in Israel and for HP. Recognised all over the world, the LEED standard is designed to provide a framework for sustainable development. It requires that developers make sustainable materials choices, that they optimise water usage and energy efficiency, and that a building’s interior is environmentally friendly.
Heidelberg has been intensifying its environmental committment for a couple of years now despite the tough business climate. In addition to delivering carbon neutral presses the company has extended the programme to its postpress equipment for commercial printing. Folders, stitchers, and adhesive binders are all covered. Heidelberg is purchasing CO2 offsets based on values calculated for the amount of greenhouse gases generated during manufacturing and shipment of its finishing equipment. Heidelberg’s money is being spent in Togo, Africa to plant trees in numbers calculated to save the equivalent amount of CO2 emissions being offset, in a protected reafforestation area.
Obviously the HP Indigo investment is massive, however it gives the company plenty of room for growth, which will be on the back of a sustainable factory site. The Heidelberg investment is actually quite small, costing only 0.1 percent of the equipment purchase price. But both these initiatives have big impacts on the environment and both demonstrate that the printing industry is making positive contributions to the sustainability of media, and thinking in climate neutral terms wherever possible.
As we step into 2013, we should all be pulling in the same direction, and investing in our industry’s future in ways large and small. So let’s make 2013 the year when we all stop pinching pennies and start taking risks again. 2013 should be the year when the print media industry clambers out of its niche and becomes a driving force for multi-channel communications in the digital world.
From all of us in the Verdigris project we wish all our readers a happy, healthy, prosperous and peaceful 2013.
– Laurel Brunner
This blog is yours to use if you want, as long as you fully credit the Verdigris supporters who make it possible: Agfa Graphics (www.agfa.com), Digital Dots (www.digitaldots.org), drupa (www.drupa.com), EFI (www.efi.com), EcoPrint (www.ecoprintshow.com), Fespa (www.fespa.com), Heidelberg (www.uk.heidelberg.com), HP (www.hp.com), Kodak (www.kodak.com/go/sustainability), Pragati Offset (www.pragati.com), Ricoh (www.ricoh.com), Splash PR (www.splashpr.co.uk), Unity Publishing (http://unity-publishing.co.uk) and Xeikon (www.xeikon.com).