Laurel Brunner

ISO 14001 (Environmental management systems) is an ISO bestseller and for good reason. In enshrines good management practises, that help us all to protect the environment, and it makes sure a business meets regulations. But a key principle in this document is that it requires an appreciation of the relationship between environmental aspects and environmental impacts. We tend to focus on the impacts but consideration of aspects is just as important.

Environmental aspects are activities that might have an influence on the environment: the what part of the equation if you like. Environmental impacts are the affect of those aspects on the environment. For instance energy usage in the business is a potential environmental aspect. The impact of energy usage would be the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions associated with it. Understanding the difference between these two means that a company is already thinking along sustainability lines, before any environmental impact can happen. Protection and mitigation are what it’s all about, so the thinking has to be part of the business culture.

In 2015 ISO 14001 was updated to strengthen some of its core assumptions, such as the fact that the law drives environmental management and that top management must be engaged. To this and monitoring, measurement and internal audit functions, the new version adds another key pillar: risk assessment. Compliant companies must now determine environmental risks associated with threats and opportunities facing the business. The management system must be set up to prevent or reduce potentials for external environmental conditions to adversely affect the organisation. And all of this must be fully documented.

It seems like a lot of trouble, so why bother with it? Even small and medium sized enterprises have environmental aspects and impacts to deal with, and yet they are not always able to manage either. But going for ISO 14001 compliance, even if you don’t bother with certification, imposes a useful management discipline. An environmental management framework ensures that all business activities are considered in the context of environmental sustainability. Its discipline invariably generates cost savings, and this is very good for the overall health of the business.

Compliance can also improve working methods, for instance cutting proofing cycles through better colour management, or identifying customers who don’t know how to make decent PDFs so that they can be better supported. And of course there’s the marketing benefit, which is intangible but a helpful means of raising profile. Heidelberg is very proud of the fact that it has recently been recertified for both ISO 14001 and ISO 9001, the quality management standard. All Heidelberg production and development sites worldwide, plus the associated support systems have been successfully recertified. So well done Heidelberg and let’s hope other manufacturers follow your lead.

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, HP, Kodak, Kornit, Ricoh, Spindrift,  Unity Publishing and Xeikon.

The marriage of ecology and economics is becoming increasingly obvious and necessary for business. As a result, developers are constantly moving to offer technologies that reduce product life cycle footprints, as well as perform more efficiently for their customers. In the graphics industry the most obvious example of this is digital printing which produces only what is needed, ideally as close as possible to its point of use. However that doesn’t mean that developments in offset printing have been standing still.

Artoos, a media services provider in Haacht, Belgium, and with a strong eco ethic, has a herd of Heidelberg SM74 presses. They swallow over 3,000 plates per month, so having 900 monthly plate changes requires considerable plate processing efficiency. Artoos uses Agfa Elite Eco plates, good for 600,000 impressions (150,000 with UV inks) and this plate has recently been upgraded, with new top and base layers to improve robustness and lifespan. Artoos is also using a cutting edge processing technology that’s good for processing over 20,000 square metres of printing plate material, before it needs cleaning out. The Agfa Graphics Arkana developing unit processes the Elite Eco thermally imaged printing plates using less than 10% of the chemistry previously required to process a plate.

The Arkana plate processor uses so much less water because it has no rinse section. Instead Agfa has added a gum cascade roller to the processor, so that when the plate exits the developer it is neutralised and finished ready for use on press. Because this happens in the cascade unit, minimal water is needed, a change that cuts overall water usage by an astonishing 90%.

Processor waste is also dramatically reduced to about half of the norm with other technologies, because the bath itself is so much smaller. It requires only 10 litres of chemistry instead of 80 litres, an economy which has a knock-on effect throughout the supply chain. It means reduced transport emissions, lower overall energy usage and improved resource management. For Artoos this has meant further reductions in its carbon footprint, improved process control and resource usage, plus more capacity to get work through the factory.

In all its forms print is thriving, and developments such as the Agfa Arkana processor and the Elite Eco plates drive improvements in print production efficiency. At the moment Agfa is alone and taking a lead with this patented technology, but we hope to see equivalent brilliance from elsewhere in the offset business. Such innovations are helping the graphics industry to drive down its carbon footprint even further.

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, HP, Kodak, Kornit, Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.

Not a week goes by that we don’t hear of another digital printer manufacturer making the switch to LED curing technology for ultra-violet (UV) inks. In the digital printing arena this is most commonly for wide format digital print engines. UV-curable inks stick to pretty much any nonabsorbent substrate including paper and board, wood, PVC, glass, metals and ceramics. They produce minimal VOCs so they don’t need expensive exhaust systems.

The arguments in favour of using LEDs instead of conventional mercury arc curing systems for UV ink curing get more compelling as technology advances and as more developers follow EFI’s lead and go for the LED alternative.

In part the rise of LED curing technologies is due to the market’s acceptance of UV-curable inks. Unlike conventional inks, UV inks do not dry through evaporation, but rather must be changed into a solid surface that sits on top of the substrate. A UV light source heats the printed inks which contain photoinitiators and other ingredients. The heat causes photoplymers in the ink to cross link and form a solid layer. The ink sits on the substrate surface rather than being partially absorbed into it, so these inks can have much larger and more intense colour gamuts than conventional offset inks. They are also instantly dry so the prints can move straight into finishing, storage or be readied for shipping. This can hit the bottom line, in that it means faster throughput in the plant and ultimately more jobs on press.

And LEDs are cheaper than mercury bulbs, lasting for several years instead of two or three which is the case with the mercury lamps. LEDs are far kinder to fragile substrates than mercury arc lamps, they use less energy, don’t have to warm up before they start working and they can be switched off when there is no curing to be done. They also pose no risk if they fail, unlike mercury arc lamps which involve glass and mercury and lots of heat.

The thing mercury arc lamps have going for them is their sheer intensity and power, which means curing takes place very, very quickly. For high productivity environments where absolute top notch quality output must be produced at speed, mercury arc curing is still the preferred choice for some manufacturers, such as Inca. However it’s just a matter of time before LED technology advances such that it makes sense for all manufacturers make the switch.

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, HP, Kodak, Kornit, Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.

Over the last few years we have seen a steady rise in the number of companies making an effort to report their sustainability credentials. This is an excellent trend, confirming that companies are taking responsibility for environmental impact seriously. Mostly this effort is in response to what shareholders and the markets expect, however over time it means that sustainability is coming into sharper focus. Indeed, it’s becoming uncool not to acknowledge the need for sustainability initiatives reporting.

Sustainability has long been high on the agendas of for instance Kodak and Agfa, and of Ricoh and HP. These companies have been working hard for years to consistently improve the power requirements of platesetters and plates, and digital presses as well as overall energy usage. The biggest advances in sustainability are coming from big chemical companies such as Kodak and Agfa, but also the likes of the Flint Group which owns Xeikon and Sun Chemical.

The latter’s recently released 2016 Sustainability Report is a great example of what we should expect from documents of this type. It also underlines the trend towards including sustainability in product design, something that the big players have been doing for years. Research and development that focuses on sustainability, especially into inks, is a means of identifying new approaches to graphics industry business models as well as new products and services. Such new products and business models help customers with their own sustainability goals, and they can also encourage new ideas from suppliers to help reduce waste.

It’s common to see metrics such as energy reductions expressed as percentages or initiatives such as installing water recovery systems and this is all to the good. We want to know more about data-driven indicators for sustainability, but all too often sustainability reports omit benchmark progress reporting. We want to know more about not only what new sustainable products a company has launched, or what sustainability initiatives have been set up. We also want to know the specifics of sustainability improvements in the business over the course of the year and the extent to which a company is applying with customers what it has learnt, as Ricoh does with its Lean & Green programme. Such information would help the graphics industry to track its overall environmental impact improvement, and would provide industry associations with the data they need to deliver to governments.

We can only demonstrate reductions in negative environmental impacts, if we have the data that supports our improvement boasts. Many large companies in our sector are ISO 14001 certified, so it shouldn’t be such a leap to marry the wonks involved with certification and compliance to the folks compiling sustainability reporting. It would be a simple enough dialogue to set up and it would be a means of proving sustainability claims.

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, HP, Kodak, Kornit, Ricoh, Spindrift,  Unity Publishing and Xeikon.

The wide format digital printing sector has started to focus heavily on textile printing. This is especially true for on demand applications such as printed interiors and disposable or recyclable fashion, which could soon supplant fast fashion as a concept. Textile and packaging printing are the two areas of print where safety must absolutely be considered from the very beginning of a project. Designers need to be aware of potential toxicities in inks and substrates particularly.

Fortunately Underwriters Laboratories (UL) have developed a certification that industry has broadly accepted. UL Greenguard certification is managed by UL Environment, a dedicated business unit within UL. The Greenguard certification is a tool designers, manufacturers and buyers can use to identify materials and interior products with low chemical emissions. The program ensures that products intended for use indoors meet stringent chemical emissions limits. This not only improves indoor air quality, but also product safety.

Although this certification was originally designed for building materials, finishes and furniture it is increasingly important for the digital printing industry. Greenguard tests for chemical and particle emissions are based on product use. In the case of digitally printed wallpapers for instance, emissions are measured during pasting and hanging, but also once the materials are on the wall. This would include rubbing, washing and even licking to check for toxicity levels. For clothing the testing includes tests to measure skin irritation and related behaviour during wearing.

Several ink manufacturers have had their digital printing inks Greenguard certified, including EFI, HP for both Scitex and Latex inks, and Ricoh. The ranks of UL Greenguard certifications are expanding Fujifilm is joining the club with Greenguard certifications for all fourteen of its Uvijet UV inks. Other manufacturers are following suit.

It is clear that standards such as the Greenguard tests make a difference, and that having a Greenguard certification is a de facto requirement. Companies who want to do business in the wide format digital printing sector, need to be at least aware of it and ideally ensure that their products comply with Greenguard. Certified compliance is a key differentiator for manufacturers. It’s also a means of ensuring that customers stick with branded inks, rather than going for a cheaper generic option that might poison someone or cause them to break out in nasty blisters.

Greenguard certified textiles and wallpapers are also available, although too many manufacturers have yet to get the digital printing message. Designers planning short run or variable data digitally printed interiors projects have to think ahead. The first consideration has to be the materials being used and their compliance or not with Greenguard and other safety standards. Inks are less of a concern because most leading manufacturers working in this space have had their inks certified. Textile manufacturers are also getting the message. But the paper industry, too often in denial about digital print, has been relatively slow to develop paper products for digital printing that can be Greenguard certified. That needs to change.

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, HP, Kodak, Kornit, Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.