Articles

There are numerous ecolabeling schemes around but only a few, such as those in Scandinavia and Hong Kong, are specific to printed matter. Schemes like the European Ecolabel or the German Blue Angel are generic, rather than being specific to print. The benefit of having a dedicated ecolabeling scheme is that it can be easier…

It may sound like a joke, but a group of British university students has recently completed a research project using this as a starting point. The University of Leicester students wanted to know how much of the Amazon rainforest it would take to print out the internet. There are a couple of leaps of faith…

According to the US Energy Information Administration the country’s energy related CO2 emissions are rising. So much for all that green-speak; more a bath than a wash. But it might not be as bad as it seems because increases of 2% to 3% are actually small relative to overall US growth which has been pretty…

Within our ISO working group we are looking at a document Fogra has drafted to provide guidance for quantifying how much energy a digital printing device consumes. You would think that this is pretty straightforward, but it’s not just a matter of counting how many units of electricity a digital press gobbles up. The idea…

Environmental management is something all businesses should bother with, but it’s such a wooly term. In a way it has to be vague because it means running your business to have the least negative environmental impact possible, and how do you define that? If you’re in the mining business your challenges will be rather different…

Environmental management is something all businesses should bother with, but it’s such a wooly term. In a way it has to be vague because it means running your business to have the least negative environmental impact possible, and how do you define that? If you’re in the mining business your challenges will be rather different…

The idea of using rubbish to create energy goes back to the first bonfire, but only a handful of companies in the graphic arts industries seem to be paying much heed to using biomass. Toppan Printing has developed a laminated packaging material that contains around 10% of biomass and Toppan expect it to be commercially…

The 13th April is an important deadline. It’s the day when a key exemption in the European Union (EU)’s Regulation on Hazardous Substance II (RoHS II) no longer applies. The ramifications for the graphic arts industry worldwide could be serious, eventually. RoHS II “lays down rules on the restriction of the use of hazardous substances…

Eleven is such a wonderful number. Think Spinal Tap and the BBC iPlayer’s volume control, or ISO TC130’s Working Group 11. When something goes up to eleven, you get just that little bit more, and it’s that little bit that can make a massive difference. So it is with Fespa’s newly relaunched Planet Friendly Guide,…