It’s been clear for many years now that processless printing plates are the way forward to improve sustainability in the printing business. They are increasingly the preferred option for printing companies keen to cut their carbon footprints, as well as saving time and money. Kodak recently presented some compelling data to encourage more European customers to switch to process free plates, specifically to the Kodak Sonora Xtra plate. This plate is made in Germany at the company’s Osterode factory. Printing plates have been made here since 1962 for customers throughout the European continent.

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The survey of 1778 printing companies from more than 120 countries was done in partnership with InfoTrends and focused on long-term trends identified in the 2018 Print Census. Five years ago, printers were worried about the industry’s prospects including revenue and investment planning, customer expectations and rising environmental pressures. All of those concerns are still prevalent. However, since the 2018 Census, respondents have seen an increase in average revenue of 7%: in 2018, average annual revenue was €4.4 million, whereas in 2023 that figure was €4.7 million. And today the finding that 72% of print buyers want their service providers to be environmentally sustainable and to offer environmentally-friendly products should be causing considerable excitement. That excitement might be good and/or bad, depending on where a business owner is on their sustainability journey.

For entrepreneurs coming into the graphics industry it should scream opportunity and provide powerful indicators as to the kind of kit they should be investing in. If 36% of respondents want both sustainable products and sustainable manufacturing, it’s a given that any business that meets those requirements will be able to tap into a ready and willing target market. Companies already investing in developing their sustainability credentials will also appreciate the vote of confidence that they’re on the right track. In all cases the business risk is substantially lower because the service provider already knows that their pitch will be well received. Perceived cost premiums associated with more sustainable products are not the barrier they once were to sustainable production – 70% of Print Census respondents said they can address sustainability expectations without price increases. A further 22% have already raised prices and have seen no impact on sales.

These numbers will make for gloomy reading for organisations who are not keen to invest in new energy-efficient kit. Business owners reluctant to gen up on new substrates and colorants that are recyclable will also be feeling the pressure. And pressure it is to accept that the only way forward for this industry’s future success is to take steps towards greater sustainability. Companies not planning to invest in the environmental sustainability of their business should be thinking again. The full Print Census report is available only to Fespa members, so if you are not yet a member, get signed up soonest.

Laurel Brunner

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, Ricoh, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.

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SBTi is about setting targets that are simultaneously challenging and achievable. That way companies can move towards cutting their environmental impacts without excess risk to the day to day viability of their commercial activities.

The SBTi can help all types of businesses to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including those in the graphics sector, using the latest climate science. The model aims to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of less than 2ºC planetary temperature increase and ideally under 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels. This is what is meant by ‘science-based’ targets, so in theory there will be a process of continual improvement in the outcomes of climate impact projects.

The five stage process starts with commitment. Working with the SBTi online dashboard an organisation submits a commitment letter confirming the goal of net-zero emissions. Companies then have a couple of years to provide SBTi with their targets. The second phase is to use SBTi’s extensive online resources to develop the targets, which can be general or sector-specific. The target-setting process can seem a little daunting and this isn’t something you want to buzz through in your lunch hour. SBTi provides loads of tools to help from a guide to getting started and a Target Setting tool through to an SME Target Validation Application Checklist. Just be prepared to commit time and resources to the whole process.

The third and fourth stages are the submission process and communication of fact that the company’s targets are accepted for validation by consultants working for the SBTi. The final phase is the disclosure process, whereby the committed company reports annual progress towards achieving the target. The reporting can be via annual reports or, for something a little more robust companies can ask CDP a ‘not-for-profit charity’ to audit and share the progress data.

The bad news is that this is all very complex. It takes time and money to define and fulfill commitments. It also takes expertise and dedication which can divert attention from other aspects of the business. This is fine for companies with many employees and divisions, and the scope within the business to assign a team to work on targets and processes for reaching them. It is not quite so fine for small-to-medium sized companies. Businesses with fewer than 250 employees, which accounts for the bulk of the printing industry, may struggle to get very far with the SBTi. That said, it’s definitely worth a look.

– Laurel Brunner

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, Ricoh, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.

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In the printing and publishing industries most companies are small to medium sized enterprises. This can make it expensive to appoint a single individual to manage environmental sustainability. And smaller businesses are not necessarily equipped to support the role of a dedicated CSO long-term. More sensibly the role can easily be added on to existing functions, such as finance or business development. The CSO remit is to drive the company’s overall mission and commitment to pushing and managing sustainability programmes. But in such a scenario there is a risk of loss of focus, so commitment has to be absolute.

It has to be said that sincere and active commitment to sustainability within printing and publishing and their supply chains is patchy. Sustainability is not universally seen as a top priority in the sector, so making it a core task or responsibility is relatively unusual. Sustainability is on the edge of most managers’ views, even though the whole company might appreciate initiatives to develop a more sustainable organisation and business. Sadly it’s still more theoretical than real. But no matter how large or small the organisation is, all businesses should put environmental impact mitigation front and centre.

How individuals tasked with doing this achieve it depends on the degree of support senior management and other stakeholders provide. Getting and quantifying the right support is obviously the first step, along with capturing budget. After that, a CSO must be able to fully appreciate the sustainability dimensions of all company policies, from HR through to sales and supply chain management. They must also be prepared for continuous and often pretty tedious knowledge development. Concept development plus dogged determination to improve existing habits and implement changes is perhaps the hardest part of the role: it has to be effective and accountable. New ideas for improved sustainability must also meet wider business objectives as well as sustainability goals. Effective communication is central to the role of a CSO, especially when it comes to selling ideas to sceptical colleagues and suppliers. Fortunately this is a two-way street because few managers want to have to keep up with the slippery landscape of environmental regulations. If a business reaches across multiple jurisdictions that aspect of the role becomes even more vital, both for the business and for the planet.

– Laurel Brunner

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, Ricoh, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.

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The argument goes that we need all these books in the interest of the market and of readers. But consider that according to the Publishers’ Association, 10 years ago 61 million books were returned annually in the UK and that of the 86,000-odd books published back then, 60,000 sold no more than 20 copies. And that was a decade ago. Modern technology has made it ever easier to take a risk on dodgy titles and to self-publish, giving DIT vanity publishing a massive boost. Latest data suggests that some 180,000 books are published in the UK alone every year.

Printed books are readily recyclable, they last for a very long time and once printed they have zero carbon footprint. They are also desirable objects so people keep them rather than junking them. These arguments favour publishing’s current model. But does the argument for diversity in topics and supplying the market with sufficient volume really stand up in an environmental context? Is the current model whereby blockbuster titles support more niche and specialist titles sustainable?

Within the printing industry it’s a no-brainer that of course those arguments and the current model stand up. We want as many books published as possible because that feeds the whole print production supply chain. Many livelihoods depend on it. Yes, this is a good thing because print is recyclable and people need jobs. But no, it is not a good thing because in anticipation of blockbuster potential too many books languish in remainder bins, so maybe some of them should never have seen the light of day in the first place. Publishing is a massive and profitable business for the big names: in the US book publishing generated US $29.3 billion in 2021, according to the Association of American Publishers. Within the US, retail channel trade revenues rose by 40.4%, reversing the declines of the previous five years. Bloomsbury has seen a 22% rise in revenues in the last six months.

The best we can hope is that the titles that only sell 20 copies are digitally printed on demand and that all those celebrity bios and cookbooks are truly treasured. But books about railway track gauges or casein volumes in cheese should maybe get reconsidered.

– Laurel Brunner

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, Ricoh, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.

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The objective to make the graphics industry more environmentally accountable and sustainable so ISO 22067-1 is the first in a series of documents. This first part provides requirements for communicating various environmental aspects (things that might impact the environment) of products and processes in print production. The idea is to make those communications more effective and meaningful so that commercial labelling schemes have sufficient detail to make more robust and accurate assessments. Over time this will make it easier to compare like with like and harder for companies to fudge assessments. This can happen absent robust datasets.

ISO 22067-1 will add greater detail to environmental impact measurements and assessments. This is needed because so often environmental labels are based on sketchy data gleaned from assessors with little understanding of print or of its sustainability. Print is often penalised because assessors are not equipped to consider the wider picture of print’s sustainability. Factors such as print’s recyclability and resource protection can easily be overlooked. Similarly, digital printing is not recognised for its ability to produce work on demand, cutting waste to nil because only those documents that are required are produced. Printing on demand also does away with the need to store print or transport it to a warehouse, all of which involves emissions.

Despite predictions of its demise, print is everywhere from receipts to books, packaging, flooring and so on. To ensure a long and healthy future we must all recognise the need for print’s environmental accountability. As the industry continues to shrink and the production base shifts to new technologies, this is even more urgent. ISO standards are only part of the picture but they are the only part of the picture which look to encourage transparency in a notoriously opaque industry.

– Laurel Brunner

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, Ricoh, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.

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Corporate climate responsibility depends on tracking and disclosing all emissions associated with the business. For the printing and publishing industries that means being able to identify those activities with an impact and being able to measure them. ISO 16759 for calculating the carbon footprint of print was developed with this in mind. ISO 22067-1 was developed for the same reasons, but to add greater detail to impact measurements.

Responsible accountability also depends on targets (which can easily be faked), reducing emissions (they generally go down with falling turnover and profits), offsetting (a license to pollute in many cases) and a miscellany of other unsexy factors that can be where real change starts (think employee empowerment and consumers’ rejection of plastics).

According to the report, only three companies actually mean what they say with unambiguous commitment to decarbonising 90-plus per cent of their value chains. There is a massive gap between what organisations appear to be pledging and the reality. Most of what some big brands claim is therefore is not quite real so scrutiny, standards and even regulation are needed. The New Climate Institute report found that none of the 25 companies evaluated achieved a high integrity rating. Maersk had a reasonable integrity rating and Apple, Sony and Vodafone had moderate integrity ratings. But most had low (Amazon, Google, Ikea) or very low (BMW, Unilever, Carrefour).

Transparency and accuracy are central to the accountability of large companies such as Amazon, however it is much easier to make a lot of noise about efforts than it is to add substance to them. All those novelists and musicians convincing themselves and their social media followers that they have talent. Eventually the noise can drown out reality. This may be what is going on with corporations championing environmental impact mitigation efforts.

Understandably companies must respond to shareholders, customers and supply chain pressures, so they come up with a plan. But distinguishing the real from the mould is tricky. The 25 companies studied for the report had combined reviews in 2020 of $3.18 trillion. That is some 10% of the revenues for the top 500 companies in the world. They also accounted for 2.7 GtCO2e, about 5% of global GHG emissions. That is an awful lot.

– Laurel Brunner

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.

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Plenty of digital printing system manufacturers think that it will, and hope that the fashion industry will embrace an on demand model to get its sector’s emissions down. Microfactories could help cut the emissions and waste associated with bulk manufacturing. They could also help fashion get even faster, so that designers and brands can deliver more than a handful of collections every year. We could move away from fashion’s seasonal tyranny to a model that responds to events rather than the season.

There’s lots to like in this model, particularly the access it gives young designers to the market. We still need the fabrics to be produced but if they can be digitally printed with patterns and designs, enormous amounts of water can be saved. Producing garments close to market, via online sales, also saves on the emissions associated with transportation, warehousing and inventory management. The relationship between designer and customer is direct and intimate and only those clothes for which there is a buyer are produced. At least in theory.

Unhooking the fashion industry from its traditional framework will take more than good intentions and high ideals, particularly in developed markets such as the USA and Europe. However in places where the garment industry still has room to grow, digital textile printing could have real and realisable scope for growth creating a market for new fashion that reflects local expectations and realities. The savings in resources can be impressive, but cutting waste and the dumping of used clothing has perhaps greater environmental impact potential, particularly since it offers opportunities for local business development in remote regions.

Digital textile production also has considerable capacity for scale, a more likely scenario in the West. What is still needed is the right commercial infrastructure for on demand fashion, high quality printing on a wider substrate range, marketing to consumers and of course education within existing supply chains. That should be the goal of all manufacturers hoping to push on demand digital textile and garment manufacture from Canon, Durst, EFI and HP through to Seiko Epson. There’s a lot at stake.

– Laurel Brunner

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.

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LanzaTech was founded in 2005 to develop ‘climate safe materials and fuels and create a future where waste carbon is converted into new everyday products and virgin fossil stays in the ground.’ LanzaTech has been working on its technology for over fifteen years and has now started to commercialise it.

CarbonSmart is a gas fermentation platform that makes possible carbon recycling from diverse feedstocks. These range from steel production emissions to waste plastics and municipal waste. This is where a rising volume of printed substrates is ending up, and for the most part municipal waste is incinerated. Thanks to this and lack of investment in deinking processes necessitated by the rise in new printing inks and processes, raw material shortage for the pulp and paper industry is of growing concern.

LanzaTech’s technology converts the feedstocks into ethanol and other chemicals, providing a viable alternative for sectors which find decarbonising difficult. In 2021 Migros, Switzerland’s largest retailing company, started producing PET packaging made from captured carbon emissions using CarbonSmart. Migros had already launched a range of cleaning products containing ethanol created using the technology. Replacing PET packaging made with petroleum with PET made with ethanol is a massive step forward for climate change mitigation.

The company’s deal with IndiTex is another example of how CarbonSmart technology can be applied. IndiTex is producing a ‘capsule collection,’ a limited fashion range, based on the newly developed polyester. The trial might go nowhere, but wherever it goes, it sets a starting point for future trials. Eventually we might get to the point where fabrics based on ethanol derived from emitted carbon are a reality.

LanzaTech’s work is all about providing technologies to support circular economies: waste from one process becomes the raw material for new products. In this context graphics professionals have a couple of things to consider. How these new substrates behave on press is probably the most worrisome. Ink developers will also need to take note, particularly those offering inkjet inks. But this tangible innovation in support of circularity is extremely encouraging. LanzaTech offers an Intellectual Property licensing programme but does not share licensee information. Perhaps pulp and paper manufacturers are already in conversation. If not, they should be.

– Laurel Brunner

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.

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Digital textile production technology developers Kornit Digital recently published its 2020 Impact and Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) Report. It finds that the fashion business overproduces by about 30% and is responsible for 20% of global waste water per year. This makes the fashion and textile industries amongst the most polluting on the planet. These numbers are surely unacceptable in this day and age.

The fashion production model is not dissimilar to that of the newspaper industry in the eighties and nineties. Newspaper publishing used to be based on the classic industrial model, whereby economies of scale were used to bring down unit costs. Huge web fed newspaper presses manufacture vast quantities of goods at minimal unit cost. That changed with the advent of the World Wide Web in 1994, so today run lengths and waste are much less. Until online competition for readers forced a change, over production was justified by the bedrock of the newspaper publishing business model: advertising income. A highly lucrative operation justified excess printing and waste. Today’s fashion and textile industries follow a similar scale-based model, and the serendipity of fast-moving and often unpredictable fashion trends is used to justify overproduction. This must change.

Proponents of digital printing for textile production are confident that the on demand model, combined with advanced printing technology, can do to textile production what it did to the newspaper industry. It could totally reshape it, so the idea of on demand fashion production is gaining traction.

On the plus side, online based on demand fulfillment for clothes should mean that fewer unwanted garments are produced. Couple the model with an online second-hand marketplace and things start to look very compelling, particularly for the planet’s sustainability. Digital textile printing cuts water use by 95% and energy use by 94%. According to Kornit, their systems can cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 82%. The company expects to produce some 2.5 billion “apparel items” by 2026, with zero overproduction. The Kornit report estimates that direct digital production will save 4.3 trillion litres of water per year. If all goes to plan, 17.2 billion kilograms of GHG emissions will also have been saved.

The savings in water come from the transition to printing inks away from dying and the various processes associated with it to produce fabric. The graphics industry is already well on the case when it comes to the environmental accountability of materials used for print production. Add to the mix the reduction in shipping emissions associated with moving textiles and clothing around the globe, and a move to on demand digital fashion all looks very positive. It also has the attraction of making clothing production much more accessible for small businesses keen to offer services to their local economies.

But, and there is always a but, weaning consumers away from the traditional fashion fulfillment model will not be easy or quick. The speed of digital printing needs to be much higher to deliver volume, especially on fabrics such as linen and silk in different weights. There is also the entrenched business to contend with. But upending interests with longstanding analogue traditions might be easier than anticipated. It will come down to a confluence of different opportunities: business model, design and creativity, technology and most important of all, consumer support.

– Laurel Brunner

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.

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