Business Management - Sustainability

For years now, you've been told that you need to be a “green” printer. Well, now I’m going to tell you to be a sustainable printer instead. Green and sustainable have much the same meaning to most people.

Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), the pulp and paper division of Sinar Mas, stirred up the ire of Greenpeace once again. So much so that Greenpeace presented APP its Golden Chainsaw Award for being “one of the worst rainforest destroyers in Indonesia.”

The green printing movement is having a big impact on college printing operations across the country. We ask Lisa Hoover, director of Publications, Print and Mail at Bucknell University, to tell us about these changes and how they're making a difference.

Green printing is anything you can do to lessen the impact on the environment - whether that's a choice of paper, printing fewer of copies of something, recycling what we have printed already, utilizing chemistry-free systems, working with FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) or SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative) certification processes, or reducing overall energy consumption.

President and CEO Dick Kouwenhoven talks about measuring the results of Hemlock’s green initiatives, incentives and reporting, and working with designers to create projects that are recyclable or reusable. Founded more than 40 years ago, Hemlock Printers generates sales of about $30 million CDN.

The company has set aside a total prize fund of EUR 50,000 for the sustainable sheetfed offset printing  award program, which is divided into two categories—“Sustainable companies” and “Forward-looking solutions.” The Heidelberg ECO Printing Award is open to any print shop that operates at least one sheetfed offset press.

Dick Kouwenhoven, president and CEO of Hemlock Printers, and his team set an audacious goal—to become the “greenest printer in the world.” Hemlock did it! In 2010, Hemlock was named the “Most Environmentally Progressive Printer in Canada” for the fifth consecutive year.

Let’s look at exactly what kinds of certifications are out there, and what they actually mean. The most comprehensive type of certification program looks at more than a process or product, it examines the entire business and its affects.

Recycling paper is becoming a lost cause for some smaller companies. The cost of picking up recycled paper is too high to do business. Bee Line Printing on Highway 117 (Burgaw, NC) gets steady business and, in turn, produces a steady trash flow. It’s an expensive waste, but not enough to interest trash companies.

The significant scrap load from the printing company, and other small businesses, just isn’t worth enough money to hire someone to sort it from the trash.

FutureMark Paper, the only company in North America producing recycled coated mechanical printing paper with up to 100% recycled content, built its plant just 12 miles from downtown Chicago, one of the top centers of magazine printing in the country. Instead of allowing recycled waste paper to be sent off to faraway mills, FutureMark harvests their raw material right there, in an "urban forest," of sorts.

And we're not talking a boutique recycling operation FutureMark has diverted 1.5 billion pounds of waste paper away from landfills since it began. By using waste paper to produce instead of virgin

Many area companies see the benefits of bringing sustainability to the fore of their operations, both economically and in terms of public relations. Take Ram Printing Inc., an East Hampstead (NH)-based, all-purpose printing company specializing in environmentally conscious products and services. Self-described “early adopters” of many now-standard green practices, Ram was launched in 1981 with approaches that quickly positioned it as a company ahead of its time.

What makes Ram different from other printing companies are the vegetable-based inks they use, virtually eliminating the toxins traditional printing methods expel into the environment. Similar companies use oil-based inks.