Anglia Print has become the first UK commercial print company to be certified by B Corporation, an organisation that promotes ethical and sustainable standards in business.
The Beccles printer is also one the smallest businesses to be part of the community of the world’s top businesses. UK members include Innocent, Guardian Media Group and office supplies groups Red Inc and RedBox.
John Popely is owner and managing director of the Beccles business and has always driven sustainability as core to the company’s ethos. It has driven nothing to landfill since 2005. And has achieved the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the sustainability sector and has been one of the few printers with Emas, the EU’s environmental management audit system. With the UK quitting the EU, Emas will not longer be relevant.
“With Emas disappearing at the end of this year we wanted something else that was as transparent and as hard to obtain. B Corp is an internationally recognised accreditation.”
The accreditation examines a company’s ethical stance, its sourcing and its environmental policies. These are scored from a possible 200 points with a company needing to score 80 to pass the audit. “As well as such things as energy usage, it ensures we are not supporting child labour or anything to do with blood diamonds for example,” says Popely. “We came out with a score of 97.” The business started on the process at Christmas with multiple rounds of questions from auditors. It was assisted through the process by environmental consultant David Shorto, who has previously worked with Greenpeace and on the Marks & Spencer Plan A. Popely adds: “Their auditors were not used to dealing with companies that are our size, they are more used to companies like Guardian Media Group.
“I don’t think that they quite believed that we were doing what we are doing. We send zero waste to landfill and we had to prove that.”
After six months of answering questions, providing the evidence and repeating the process, Anglia received the award. “How much good it will do us, I’m not sure, B Corp is not that well known at the moment, but it’s what we do,” he explains.
Anglia Print operates digital and a Presstek waterless litho press. Energy is sourced from green providers and all waste is segregated and reused or recycled. Everything it buys is assessed from an environment standpoint.
Anglia retains Emas certification until the end of this year. It has been one of a handful of print companies with Emas, alongside Pureprint and Seacourt. But as UK companies will not be eligible for Emas after the Brexit transition period, there has been no point in continuing with the certification. An Emas International versions exists, but requires the company to pay for auditors to be sent in from the EU, something that is too expensive for Anglia to contemplate.
Pureprint has said it will continue to publish the figures that are required by Emas, even without the certification. Anglia decided to take a different road that has the same rigorous approach.
John Popely was looking for an open and transparent environmental sustainability scheme to replace Emas, found that B Corp met the bill. Anglia Print is now the first commercial printer in the UK to be recognised for its sustainable and ethical approach to business.
