Suddenly carbon has become the black spot for businesses in all manner of sectors. From retailers to travel, automotive and financial, the carbon footprint of the supply chain is being assessed, being checked and being used to sort the wheat from the chaff.
The clear message is that unless those businesses that are part of the supply can produce a carbon figure for their role in it, they risk exclusion from that supply chain. And print is surely part of this trend.
Requests for information on formal and informal tenders are rife and while there is scant evidence that customers are prioritising a lower carbon impact over price – at least not yet – the carbon figure can make a difference between two otherwise evenly matched businesses.
There is a requirement then to be able to provide that figure, preferably for the whole business though few can do this as yet, but certainly for the paper used. The rise of interest in what are called carbon captured, carbon offset or carbon balanced papers is a clear indication that this is happening. This is rapidly the new FSC, recalling the clamour to prove chain of custody when FSC first arrived on the scene. There are also indications that European average figures for paper production are no longer sufficient. People want to use precise figures for carbon generated in the production of paper, something that favours Scandinavian papers where hydro power is a strong part of the electricity generation compared to southern Europe where natural gas holds sway or Germany where coal is still a significant fuel for electricity generation.
The figures will come in a paper profile which printers can use to demonstrate impacts to their customers, along with payment of a small premium to offset that element through an offsetting scheme.
Without question the two most popular schemes in this regard are Premier Paper’s Carbon Capture through partnership to the Woodland Trust where funds are used to plant trees so creating and restoring UK woodlands, and the Carbon Balanced Paper scheme, led by Denmaur but also supported by Antalis and Fedrigoni, which supports the World Land Trust’s projects to preserve tropical forests, thus sequestering the carbon the trees remove from the atmosphere and preserving the frequently endangered wildlife that lives in these forests.
This was certainly part of the appeal for UK Greetings which is offsetting the carbon element of 16,500 tonnes of paper and board used in the greetings cards it produces. The company joined the scheme last year, capturing 11,000 tonnes of CO2 through the World Land Trust, following which it has gained a new contract with Tesco.
“The aim is to prevent illegal logging and promote bio diversity. The World Land Trust partnership helps protect established forests so that we do not lose the biodiversity they contain,” says head of sustainability Chris Shaw. “Biodiversity is a precious gift, and allowing species to become extinct through the removal of their habitats is not an act of natural selection, but a deplorable act by humans.” The link allows UK Greetings to print the WLT logo on all its cards.
Part of the process for the company has been the assessment of the carbon footprint of the substrates it uses, which can differ whether European or Asian produced. Those from China have a significantly larger impact because coal remains a strong part of the electricity mix in that country. UK Greetings was the first to offset the carbon element of shipping products from Asia to the UK, so while the impact of long distance transport would seem an advantage to UK print, for UK Greetings the carbon impact of that is not. The company is, however, looking at increasing local production for supply chain security and waste issues.
Balancing, capturing or offsetting the carbon in paper is simply the first step towards the end goal of being able to measure and offset the entire footprint of a print business or printed product. It is the most important one with paper reckoned to account for 61% of the carbon footprint of an average print job. The remainder comes in printing, the consumables and the transportation used. Measuring this is now going to become important for printers in all sectors, notably in retail where supermarkets are already under pressure to remove single use plastic and to be seen to be more sustainable for their customers.
Marks & Spencer has arguably led the way with its Plan A strategy to reduce impacts and increase sustainability. As far as print is concerned this means making food packaging 100% recyclable this year and reducing the use of plastic in food packaging by 2027.
For Kingfisher plc, owner of B&Q and Screwfix in the UK, it means adopting a zero waste to landfill goal, commitment to use of chain of custody PEFC or FSC materials in timber and paper, support for the Rainforest Alliance to protect, restore and manage topical forests in a responsible manner. It wants all its branded products to be supplied in fibre based materials by 2025, reducing plastic use by 25% and taking direct responsibility for providing packaging from vendors of key products. Blister packs are on their way out.
Penguin Books spells out its strategy in a Road to Zero report which begins with a measurement of 33,945 tonnes of CO2e across its offices and supply chains. The biggest contribution to this is paper and production, which rather than going down, increased in 2020 as a result of a growth in books sold. It has designed a sustainable production toolkit to help those staff engaged in design and production to understand the impacts of the choices they make. Its intermediate target is a 25% reduction of carbon footprint compared to the 2018 baseline. It has a tough job as the carbon impact from print rose 9% in 2021 compared to 2018.
The publisher states: “We want to make better choices about the type of paper we use and where we print our books so that our emissions decrease year on year regardless of increased sales.” As paper and print are its biggest contribution to carbon emissions, amounting to 74%, changes here can have a big impact. It has been examining papers, glues, inks and plastic used in production to find better alternatives.
Penguin has followed the Science Based Targets initiative and the carbon calculations from Defra to calculate the emissions figures and is working with Climate Partner to offset these. And it is working too with suppliers. These should all achieve ‘best in class’ status by 2023 with key suppliers expected to provide regular updates and take part in meetings about sustainability.
It is not only book publishers taking this course. Magazine publishers too want to minimise the carbon emissions associated with printed publications while increasing recyclability. Consequently subscription copies will frequently arrive in paper wrap rather than the polywrap that was a universal choice just a few years ago.
Walstead is now inviting customers in to discuss ways of cutting impacts through its tie up with ClimateCalc, a validated way to measure the carbon impact of any printed product, and which is owned by print associations around Europe, including the BPIF. The web offset group had to calculate its own emissions to begin with in order to understand the base line impacts that are fixed and the variable impacts from running each machine and the materials and consumables used. The figures were then audited by the BPIF.
Walstead UK group HSEQ manager Paul Sorosina says: “The audit looks at all our inputted data per site such as electric and gas consumption, LPG consumption, waste paper figures and paper delivery figures. It then confirms that the data we have put into the calculator is correct and gives us an accurate CO2 figure.
“We broke down the total paper into grades and then applied individual paper profiles that we obtained from the relevant mill. We also input accurate delivery mileages from the paper mill to the Walstead facility. This will give us a far more accurate CO2 figure than printers using worst case scenario data.” This information is already being used in negotiations with publishers so that they understand the carbon figures relating to their choice of paper. Which, if any, will do so is likely to be driven by the audience for any particular magazine.
ClimateCalc is a printing industry specific carbon calculator that uses 13 parameters to identify and measure emissions.
Many are Scope 1 and Scope 2 so are tied into the production site and internal policies on energy for example. Others are Scope 3 and relate to the supply of goods and services by third party providers or to travel to the factory or offices.
Scope 1 and 2 amounts will normally represent 10-20% of the total CO2e of a printed product. The remainder falls under Scope 3 and can be reduced through switching providers or changing buying patterns: delivery once or twice a week rather than every day will cut related emissions.
ClimateCalc spilts the parameters into those that are site relevant and those that are product relevant. This includes production of paper, inks, toners and similar, production of any packaging, transport of goods in and of products out. The site relevant parameters include production and exposure of plates, production of fount solutions and cleaning fluids, production and any on site combustion of fuels, energy used, staff journeys to work and company owned vehicles.
Then comes the investigation phase to gather the data and establish a base line for the reduction of carbon emissions either by changing heating systems internally, investing in less energy intensive technology, opting for substrates with a better carbon profile. The footprint of the substrate is far and away the biggest factor according to the fingerprint of heatset web printer that ClimateCalc has worked with. In this case production of the paper accounts for 61%, followed by the production of purchased energy at 16%, onsite combustion of fuel at 8% and transport of raw materials in, production of inks and varnishes or toners each amounting to 5% of the total, with the remaining eight parameters accounting for the final 5%.
Intergraf reckons that this will cover 95% of the emissions of a print business, though warns that certain external factors may have a disproportionate impact. And it is not intended to include the carbon impact of capital assets like a press where definitive data is almost impossible to find, especially on older machinery.
To date there are 91 sites that have undergone and passed the audit, entitling them to add a ClimateCalc barcode to any work. To date the majority of registered printers are in the Scandinavian and Baltic states with the Netherlands and France offering a good showing. UK membership is restricted now to Walstead sites and to TLG in Leeds. Possession of the certification did not prevent the administration of other YM Group companies.
The number of ClimateCalc companies is exceeded by the numbers that the CarbonCo has certified as Carbon Balanced Printers. It reckons that it will have 100 UK printers listed by the end of this year thanks to huge interest that has doubled the number of printers reaching the qualification since 2021, itself double that of the year before.
This status is the logical step on from being printer using Carbon Balanced Papers. Similarly those that are using Premier Papers’ Carbon Capture scheme to offset carbon emissions from paper and are interested in taking the next step to carbon neutral status have access to a consultancy package helping printers set down the procedures needed for chain of custody and into the most appropriate way to measure the overall carbon footprint of a business and of any job.
CarbonQuota is equally gung-ho, particularly after linking up with MIS provider Tharstern. This enables a printer to raise a carbon estimate at the same time as quoting on a job. It will be possible to choose production paths that minimise the carbon impact of production, choosing different finishes for example or different substrates or perhaps a larger format press resulting in a fewer passes through the machine and fewer makereadies.
The integration was forged by Gecko director Chris Bottomley. He explains: “It was a Friday afternoon when I joined a presentation that Dominic Harris from CarbonQuota was giving to our people. It was really interesting. It was much more indepth than just about the paper, so I asked whether we could do a couple of test runs on jobs. They calculated the impact of the papers, the equipment we used, the processes and the impact of assembling the DM packs down to delivery.”
Bottomley was hooked and realised that the real power would come when Gecko could present a carbon figure along with the estimate for a job. He approached the company’s MIS provider of 15 years, Tharstern.
“We wanted everything we do to have a carbon value applied to it so that we can produce a quote with that amount of carbon shown and give that to the client to let them decide if they want to have it offset. This is going to benefit us and will be a benefit to our clients.”
The work that CarbonQuota did quickly showed that the same job produced on an Indigo compared to a litho press would deliver a 30% saving in the carbon footprint of that job. That is of no direct use to Gecko as it evolved from a print management agency into a printer that only has HP Indigo presses. But in a competitive situation, that kind of information might swing the win.
“We are not a generic printer. Everything we print is different, every page we print can be different – that’s the beauty of digital,” says Bottomley. It means too that the business is open to new ideas and ways of working. The project was on.
CarbonQuota had to create the calculations for every possible aspect of Gecko’s business from the source of electricity and heat for the building down to the variable elements on every job. Dominic Harris says: “Anyone can run the calculations for the carbon footprint of paper. But when it comes to calculating for the printing, its the finishing, the consumables, the number of boxes needed to pack the job, how much shrink wrap is needed, the difference in delivery whether by Royal Mail, DPD or Whistl and then what happens when the job is delivered. All impact, all need to be considered.”
That is the job of the CarbonQuota technology where the algorithms take all the variables and spit out a useful answer based on the scientific approach that CarbonQuota endorses. “We do work for inks in South Africa and CarbonQuota will take the air freighting into consideration,” Bottomley says, “as well as every piece of kit we have for print and finishing and the impact of data processing.
“Clients are asking about our sustainability policies whether we have ISO 14001 and use FSC papers. This is a step further than that.”
The work with Tharstern is more straightforward. Chief revenue officer Lee Ward explains: “It is about integration for us. Once CarbonQuota gives us the figures about the carbon footprint of the business, the equipment it has, the papers it uses along with other relevant analysis, we can connect and use this.”
It is an API connection that speeds the process. The supplier reckons that it might take five hours to connect up each customer with some element of consultancy and business services. Gecko, for example, is creating templates for the jobs it produces to include the carbon element.
“This integration has been led by Gecko,” says Ward. Most integrations will be required by a number of users, with this there was just one request. Tharstern is, however, glad that it made the connection. “It has stirred great interest. I have never seen anything create so much interest in so short a time,” he adds.
There is application across much of the Tharstern user base, in North America as much as in the UK, Ward reckons. The customer needs to be on Version 7.0 of the MIS and to be on the SaaS model. The two separate businesses can then connect in the cloud. Then when the MIS creates an estimate, the information can be passed to CarbonQuota to generate a carbon figure, a process that takes all of five seconds making it practical to respond rapidly when a customer starts to question the quote or to make adjustments.
While the carbon figure is automatically generated, it does not follow that that amount of carbon is offset automatically. The industry’s customers however are interested. “Retail companies are applying pressure on their suppliers to be more transparent,” says Ward. “And this applies right across their supply chain including providers of point of sale material and packaging. They are looking for figures, so if the printer cannot supply those figures the customer is looking for, they will go elsewhere to find a supplier that can. And then there is the question of whether the customer will then pay the premium to have the carbon offset?”
“Reducing carbon emissions will be among the requirements of the upcoming European Regulation on ecodesign for sustainable products. The demand for the reduction of the carbon footprint of printed products will increase. Thanks to ClimateCalc, the printing industry is now not only equipped with a credible approach to assess the carbon footprint of its products, but it also provides the market with a procedure to prioritise the reduction over the compensation of carbon emissions of its products.”
Penguin Books sets out its vision for sustainable book production in its Road to net zero report. And paper, printing and distribution are major elements of the publisher’s overall carbon footprint. It wants to make better choices about the paper used and where books are printed. Printers are expected to reduce emissions and too work with Penguin to deliver these goals.
Screwfix has cut back on catalogue printing, in order, it says, to cut back on trees consumed for paper. It reckons 74,000 trees will be preserved in this way, but does not explain how or where. The company’s owner Kingfisher plc says that catalogues across its retail empire have transitioned to FSC or PEFC papers, but it does not say that it is cutting back on the numbers of catalogues printed. However, it is switching packaging away from plastic to corrugated and cardboards.
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