Rob van den Braak

The European Commission (EC) has sent out a call for ideas for its Horizon 2020 (H2020) work programme, which includes environmental improvement initiatives. H2020 has almost €80 billion of funding available until 2020 for research and innovations intended to keep Europe competitive on the global stage. The H2020 money isn’t only about environmental stuff, however sustainability is an important plank in the H2020 platform.

€80 billion is an awful lot of shoes. This is taxpayers’ money that is deployed to help Europe to grow and develop in a healthy and sustainable way, but according to the EC’s H2020 website “Horizon 2020 is open to everyone” so any organisation can submit ideas. But let’s face it, even though anyone can contribute to this programme, proposals from EU member states will obviously get priority. For other countries some sort of cooperative proposal with a European entity would be advisable.

The EC is inviting interested parties to get in touch if they would like to participate in the 2016 to 2017 work programme. The work programme currently underway for 2014 to 2015 focuses on boosting competitiveness, growth and jobs. For 2016 to 2017 the emphasis seems to be on strategic research and innovation which is unemphatically vague.

How this call for ideas could be of benefit to the graphic arts is up to the industry. There is an opportunity for printing and publishing industry associations to get funding for work in various areas. For instance they might want to encourage adoption of environmental standards, or process efficiency standards that reduce waste. They also have an opportunity perhaps to improve provisions related to improving recycling such as deinking or raw material acquisition. Perhaps they want to train printers and publishers to produce media more efficiently for reduced environmental impact. Or how about setting up cooperative exchange programmes to send people to learn about media supply chains in different markets? If any of this sounds tempting, contact the World Print and Communication Forum, (www.worldprintforum.org) which represents international and regional print associations to see if they can help.

Ideas exchanges based on experience can have a very positive effect on long term trade prospects, and encourage potential entrepreneurs to think differently. With H2020 there really is no limit on what might be proposed, as long as it is in line with the H2020 goals of driving economic growth and employment. Designers, illustrators, writers, publishers and printers get your thinking caps on! You can find out more here: http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/news/consultation-stakehol…. If you already have an idea you want to submit, contact RTD-ENV-H2020STAKEHOLDERS@ec.europa.eu. You have until the 16th June 2014.

Laurel Brunner

The Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs in Germany is funding a new Fogra project to look at the energy efficiency of small and large format digital printers.

This project is evaluating different digital printers (excluding textile machines) in order to quantify how much energy they use. Fogra has based its method on existing approaches to evaluating power consumption in conventional presses. This is intended to provide some sort of control against which the performance of digital printing devices can be assessed. For digital printers Fogra has also included peripheral equipment and specified the measurement cycle. This is a very exciting initiative and, depending on how their testing works and the robustness of the method, it is one that Fogra wants to put forward to be turned into an international standard.

This is important work because different print sectors and production models obviously have different energy requirements. Fogra is basing its evaluation on what they consider to be a representative system configuration, in order to evaluate power consumption and energy usages. This could vary depending on the print mode for instance, or on the output format. There are also the specifics of electrical and power considerations, including the power connection and connection type, the maximum load a system can take in terms of amps and the input voltage. It also important to know the distances between power outlets and machines as this will influence power consumption.

Fogra has categorised digital printers according to the applications they are designed to produce. They are considering energy and power consumption for three different print modes: standby, print ready and production. The basis of measurement is either in A4 sheets per kilowatt hour or square metres per kilowatt hour. Various criteria affect power consumption such as whether the machine is cold when printing starts, substrate weight and passage through the machine, the top printing speed, how much pressure is required to print a substrate, the substrate size and the nature of the inks used. For instance, inks might be very fluid and require immediate drying. There might also be energy usage for pretreating substrates.

Once the project is completed Fogra will produce a guidance document that explains how to measure “operational specific energy consumption”. No doubt this document will also form the basis of some sort of testing service Fogra will offer.

The Fogra work provides printers and publishers with a tool they can use as part of a carbon footprinting study or for Life Cycle Analysis. It has the potential to provide a defined method that can be used in any digital printing scenario, much as the energy consumption of household appliances is measured using the Energy Star rating system.

Laurel Brunner