The world is changing. Perhaps for the better, certainly in the short term for the worse. There are huge fires along the west coast of North America, devastating floods across mainland Europe and China, record temperatures in Siberia. This is the climate crisis. The world is changing. The printing industry has to change too or many printers will be swept away.
Today printing is relatively benign compared to its footprint a generation ago, thanks in part to technology change, thanks in part to legislation. The industry no longer pours silver solutions into the public drains because we no longer process silver halide film. We no longer spew emissions into the atmosphere because the law forbids it just as legislation forced the paper industry to clean up.
Even so we can, we must and we will do more. Those that do not will find the environmental police taking a stronger look at their businesses; they will find that recruitment becomes increasingly difficult; they will find that customers will buy print elsewhere. Printers that do not change, and change quickly in the face of climate crisis, are on the wrong side of history.
For all the work that print has put in in recent decades, it can never eliminate a negative environmental impact. Print uses inputs that have been extracted from the planet, it uses chemicals produced in vast plants, it uses energy that may rely on the consumption of fossil fuels. But print can become sustainable, choosing wisely the products it consumes and showing awareness of the waste it produces. And it must do so if it is to have a future.
In terms of recruitment, which is already a problem for many in print, nobody wants a career in an industry that is harming the planet. Conversely if a business is working to be fully sustainable, including in terms of its staff, customers and suppliers, it becomes a company that people are proud to be associated with.
This applies to customers. Currently many still consider price to be the key difference between one printer and the next. The enlightened are already asking questions about sustainability and carbon footprints. Major brands cannot risk working for a company that harms the planet and consequently its reputation. Start up brands want to work with businesses with a similar outlook.
In the issue we look at examples of how this change is happening, how the paper sector is able to mitigate the energy impacts of producing and moving paper through tree planting schemes. There is more to be done. Develop on press plates that eliminate the need for conventional processors and the chemistry that goes in them are still only being used by 10% of the industry.
There are multiple ways that printers can cut energy use, immediately by switching to LED lighting and motion sensing switches; in the longer term by choosing printing technologies that consume less energy per page printed. Rainwater can be reused for toilets, heat can be captured and recycled.
Some printers in this country are already acting on it. No longer are the likes of Seacourt to be considered oddities, the hair shirted vegans of print. These are businesses that are getting it right, that have realised they need to cut their environmental impact, and are on the journey, even if they discover that real facts and data can be hard to come by. There is no turning back now.
Of course many printers will point out that they are already FSC (which says nothing about the energy efficiency of the mill producing the paper) certified, that this is as good as recycled paper (which they do not want to print on and is expensive), that they use vegetable oil inks as if the word vegetable overcomes any issues about the plantations and fields that are the source of the oil and the pigments and resins that combine to make the litho ink. They may even tout an ISO 14001 certification without publicising the targets and measures that are in place. However, this kind of transparency goes hand in hand with a reduced carbon impact and good corporate citizenship.
It requires transparency from all in the supply chain. Those that have attempted to track the source and impact of the consumables, inks say, used across the industry. It is not easy. And this is without consideration of blankets, rollers, drying technology, fount solutions that are vital to litho printing. In reality few print companies have tried to find out for themselves what their environmental impacts are. It is all too easy to reassure yourself that the sales rep you deal with would not mislead you. Reach documentation relays information about the safety issues of any chemistry that is used, not about its carbon impact. Carbon needs to be part of product data sheets.
Because if printers are not asking questions about the materials they consume, they will soon be asked these questions by customers. The printer that does not understand its carbon impact and can include this with an estimate can find that it loses the job to the printer that supplies this information.
The major brands, the energy industries, retailers, finance, education, events and hospitality are cleaning up their act. They consider that sustainability is an essential part of their future and do not want to be seen to be responsible for processes that are considered harmful to the environment. It matters not that plastic can help prevent food waste, that it is lightweight and a byproduct of the oil industry. It is the scape goat and must carry the guilt of concerned society.
Legislation is on its way to Parliament which will make the producer pay for the reclamation of any plastic used for packaging. And this law will have no truck with biodegradable products. These will incur the same charges as a material that makes no such claim. Greenwash of this kind is on its way out. The charges will enable local authorities to invest in facilities to collect and sort the plastic so that it no longer ends up in our country lanes or somebody else’s beach and oceans.
This bodes well for companies able to produce sustainable packaging or to collect and reuse packaging plastic.
The paper industry does not escape. It is a heavy energy user, the fourth largest industrial energy consumer in Europe, with the result that its industry body is arguing in Brussels that the 895 paper mills in the EU should have help to decarbonise, pointing to the role that forests have to play in the coming green economy. Not all paper mills are equal, accidents of geography and national policies have a huge impact while larger mills are able to invest in Combined Heat and Power plants to provide on site energy. Others will not be able to afford to do so, and zero carbon paper production is a long way off.
Zero carbon printing is, however, within grasp or at least within a conceivable timescale. And it will be necessary as part of the decarbonising of the economy to meet the world’s climate targets. The promises of politicians will be backed up by laws.
This may mean on site energy generation through solar panels should be mandatory for all new construction. Printers need to wean themselves off IPA, processing chemistry and solvent based cleaners. Waste needs to be controlled even more than it is already. All this is possible as is the idea of replacing equipment that uses older less efficient motors and that was designed in the years before energy efficiency was an imperative.
Further ahead, printers should be looking at alliances that minimise road transport. It makes sense already to print in the country of use rather than in a far away land and ship products thousands of miles across the globe. Already book publishers are discovering there are other advantages to onshoring print production, that the higher unit cost of digital print is more than balanced by the shrinking carbon footprint of overproduction in China, or stacking thousands of books in a climate controlled warehouse for an unknown period.
The logic will spread from books into other printed products and towards a distributed printing model, where a network of printers can share the same job according to location. This has been around for many years via the Independent Printers Network and has been brought into the network age by a number of online print brands. They will take a greater share of a diminishing market because the logic they are working to is ultimately unarguable and thus unstoppable.
Printers that want to survive in this post carbon age should embrace this change. In the same vein that some have partnered for disaster recovery support, printers should link up with like minded companies to help reduce environmental impact for their customers.
Technology is already reducing the variables in analogue printing through plate production and automation and through the advances in consistency possible on digital presses. It requires a willingness to change, which has rarely been one of the industry’s strengths.
Having 50 carbon balanced printers by the end of this year is both something to applaud and to weep over. And it has taken fire, flood and the Covid plague to force this to happen. What else is needed?
Print needs to be part of the change
The world is changing. Perhaps for the better, certainly in the short term for the worse. There are huge fires along the west coast of North America, devastating floods across mainland Europe and China, record temperatures in Siberia. This is the climate crisis. The world is changing. The printing industry has to change too or many printers will be swept away.
Today printing is relatively benign compared to its footprint a generation ago, thanks in part to technology change, thanks in part to legislation. The industry no longer pours silver solutions into the public drains because we no longer process silver halide film. We no longer spew emissions into the atmosphere because the law forbids it just as legislation forced the paper industry to clean up.
Even so we can, we must and we will do more. Those that do not will find the environmental police taking a stronger look at their businesses; they will find that recruitment becomes increasingly difficult; they will find that customers will buy print elsewhere. Printers that do not change, and change quickly in the face of climate crisis, are on the wrong side of history.
For all the work that print has put in in recent decades, it can never eliminate a negative environmental impact. Print uses inputs that have been extracted from the planet, it uses chemicals produced in vast plants, it uses energy that may rely on the consumption of fossil fuels. But print can become sustainable, choosing wisely the products it consumes and showing awareness of the waste it produces. And it must do so if it is to have a future.
In terms of recruitment, which is already a problem for many in print, nobody wants a career in an industry that is harming the planet. Conversely if a business is working to be fully sustainable, including in terms of its staff, customers and suppliers, it becomes a company that people are proud to be associated with.
This applies to customers. Currently many still consider price to be the key difference between one printer and the next. The enlightened are already asking questions about sustainability and carbon footprints. Major brands cannot risk working for a company that harms the planet and consequently its reputation. Start up brands want to work with businesses with a similar outlook.
In the issue we look at examples of how this change is happening, how the paper sector is able to mitigate the energy impacts of producing and moving paper through tree planting schemes. There is more to be done. Develop on press plates that eliminate the need for conventional processors and the chemistry that goes in them are still only being used by 10% of the industry.
There are multiple ways that printers can cut energy use, immediately by switching to LED lighting and motion sensing switches; in the longer term by choosing printing technologies that consume less energy per page printed. Rainwater can be reused for toilets, heat can be captured and recycled.
Some printers in this country are already acting on it. No longer are the likes of Seacourt to be considered oddities, the hair shirted vegans of print. These are businesses that are getting it right, that have realised they need to cut their environmental impact, and are on the journey, even if they discover that real facts and data can be hard to come by. There is no turning back now.
Of course many printers will point out that they are already FSC (which says nothing about the energy efficiency of the mill producing the paper) certified, that this is as good as recycled paper (which they do not want to print on and is expensive), that they use vegetable oil inks as if the word vegetable overcomes any issues about the plantations and fields that are the source of the oil and the pigments and resins that combine to make the litho ink. They may even tout an ISO 14001 certification without publicising the targets and measures that are in place. However, this kind of transparency goes hand in hand with a reduced carbon impact and good corporate citizenship.
It requires transparency from all in the supply chain. Those that have attempted to track the source and impact of the consumables, inks say, used across the industry. It is not easy. And this is without consideration of blankets, rollers, drying technology, fount solutions that are vital to litho printing. In reality few print companies have tried to find out for themselves what their environmental impacts are. It is all too easy to reassure yourself that the sales rep you deal with would not mislead you. Reach documentation relays information about the safety issues of any chemistry that is used, not about its carbon impact. Carbon needs to be part of product data sheets.
Because if printers are not asking questions about the materials they consume, they will soon be asked these questions by customers. The printer that does not understand its carbon impact and can include this with an estimate can find that it loses the job to the printer that supplies this information.
The major brands, the energy industries, retailers, finance, education, events and hospitality are cleaning up their act. They consider that sustainability is an essential part of their future and do not want to be seen to be responsible for processes that are considered harmful to the environment. It matters not that plastic can help prevent food waste, that it is lightweight and a byproduct of the oil industry. It is the scape goat and must carry the guilt of concerned society.
Legislation is on its way to Parliament which will make the producer pay for the reclamation of any plastic used for packaging. And this law will have no truck with biodegradable products. These will incur the same charges as a material that makes no such claim. Greenwash of this kind is on its way out. The charges will enable local authorities to invest in facilities to collect and sort the plastic so that it no longer ends up in our country lanes or somebody else’s beach and oceans.
This bodes well for companies able to produce sustainable packaging or to collect and reuse packaging plastic.
The paper industry does not escape. It is a heavy energy user, the fourth largest industrial energy consumer in Europe, with the result that its industry body is arguing in Brussels that the 895 paper mills in the EU should have help to decarbonise, pointing to the role that forests have to play in the coming green economy. Not all paper mills are equal, accidents of geography and national policies have a huge impact while larger mills are able to invest in Combined Heat and Power plants to provide on site energy. Others will not be able to afford to do so, and zero carbon paper production is a long way off.
Zero carbon printing is, however, within grasp or at least within a conceivable timescale. And it will be necessary as part of the decarbonising of the economy to meet the world’s climate targets. The promises of politicians will be backed up by laws.
This may mean on site energy generation through solar panels should be mandatory for all new construction. Printers need to wean themselves off IPA, processing chemistry and solvent based cleaners. Waste needs to be controlled even more than it is already. All this is possible as is the idea of replacing equipment that uses older less efficient motors and that was designed in the years before energy efficiency was an imperative.
Further ahead, printers should be looking at alliances that minimise road transport. It makes sense already to print in the country of use rather than in a far away land and ship products thousands of miles across the globe. Already book publishers are discovering there are other advantages to onshoring print production, that the higher unit cost of digital print is more than balanced by the shrinking carbon footprint of overproduction in China, or stacking thousands of books in a climate controlled warehouse for an unknown period.
The logic will spread from books into other printed products and towards a distributed printing model, where a network of printers can share the same job according to location. This has been around for many years via the Independent Printers Network and has been brought into the network age by a number of online print brands. They will take a greater share of a diminishing market because the logic they are working to is ultimately unarguable and thus unstoppable.
Printers that want to survive in this post carbon age should embrace this change. In the same vein that some have partnered for disaster recovery support, printers should link up with like minded companies to help reduce environmental impact for their customers.
Technology is already reducing the variables in analogue printing through plate production and automation and through the advances in consistency possible on digital presses. It requires a willingness to change, which has rarely been one of the industry’s strengths.
Having 50 carbon balanced printers by the end of this year is both something to applaud and to weep over. And it has taken fire, flood and the Covid plague to force this to happen. What else is needed?
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