The Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner
For many printing and publishing companies it can be hard to know where to start with sustainability policies. As with so many things, understanding the question is actually a lot more stressy than taking action.
The most important starting point has to be a complete review of your operations in order to identify inefficiencies. You can do this at the company level which might be complicated and hard. Or you can do this at the department or even job function level. This is far easier and more likely to be done in smaller companies without the layers of admin, politics and vested interests potentially undermining the work.
Once you know your weaknesses you can start to fix them. How you go about doing that depends on the frailties you have identified and how serious they are. But you can follow a few basic principles.
Automate processes as much as you can. Identify what causes halts in prepress, such as preflight checking and print management errors. If you can automate file optimisation, you smooth a data file’s progress through to print. Corrections such as fixing colour models and image resolution can be tedious and costly to make, so automate them where you can. And enable bleed settings as well as auto-trimming, so that you minimise substrate waste.
You may not be able to automate everything, even though Artificial Intelligence in software can take things very far. Whatever manual processes you have can always be made more efficient, for instance by having a system for chasing receivables. Too many printing companies we talk to say that getting invoices paid is a source of cash flow management problems. Greater efficiency and process control improve your overall environmental footprint.
If it works for your clients, try to print double-sided as much as you can. This obviously cuts waste and maximises your substrate capacity. Using recycled materials is clearly an improvement over substrates that are made from virgin stocks.
Consider the inks you use. Are they eco-friendly in that they are biodegradable because they are not made from fossil fuels? Do they contain Volatile Organic Compounds that need to be gassed off? Remember too, eco-friendly inks are a lot less likely to raise health and safety concerns in your factory.
How your plant is organised, where prepress is relative to the press hall, how close substrate deliveries are to the printing presses and inventoried can all make a difference to your business’s carbon footprint. Inventory is capital tied up, so manage it and minimise it using a just-in-time model. But also keep in mind that more frequent deliveries to your plant may mean higher emissions associated with transportation. Again, it’s a subjective thing.
There are lots of steps you can take to get your environmental impact under control. But the most important is that first step, accepting that sustainability for the planet and for your business is in your own hands.
***
This article was produced by the Verdigris Project, an industry initiative intended to raise awareness of print’s positive environmental impact. This weekly commentary helps printing companies keep up to date with environmental standards, and how environmentally friendly business management can help improve their bottom lines. Verdigris is supported by the following companies: Agfa Graphics, EFI, Fespa, Fujifilm, HP, Kodak, Miraclon, RicohSplash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.
Please also include the Verdigris logo and a link to this website. If you don’t already have our logos, you can get them by downloading the “Publishers Bundle”. And don’t forget terms of the Creative Commons license at the footer of the site. Enjoy!