Laurel Brunner’s Verdigris Blog: Awards Idea Looking for a Home

OK so here’s the thing. We would like to see an environmental award initiative for the graphic arts industry that cuts across geographies, technologies and printing sectors. This initiative would include a series of categories that are easy to understand and easy for printers, publishers and manufacturers to submit entries for. Ideally the awards would be judged and awarded at a major international trade show such as drupa. Maybe this should be a target for drupa 2016?

Why do we want to see this, given the fact that there are already various awards out there? As excellent as they are, most of the awards available are limited either to specific companies and product implementations or to single categories. For the print industry’s environmental voice to be fully heard, we need some loud and conclusive environmental statement to the world. The industry needs a single focal point that boasts its world leading environmental management credentials. It has to be a single noisy shout because matters environmental are relevant to printers and print buyers in all industries and in all parts of the world.

Here are some preliminary ideas for the awards categories, which should appeal to printers, publishers and manufacturers:

• Most impressive environmental policy.
• Most impressive sustainable printing company.
• Most impressive sustainable publishing company.
• Most impressive sustainable media campaign.
• Most impressive environmental impact management.
• Most impressive combination of cross media services.
• Most impressive investments into green technology.
• Most impressive management commitment to green policies.
• Most impressive carbon offsetting programme.
• Most impressive technology for reducing and avoiding waste.
• Most impressive tactics for controlling supply chain emissions.
• Most impressive environmental content on a website.
• Most impressive reduction in corporate carbon footprint.
• Most impressive reduction in print run carbon footprints.

These last two will be tricky unless companies are tracking this stuff already. In fact all fourteen of the categories will be tricky and deciding what’s “most impressive” is almost silly. But maybe that is the point: in coming up with an understanding of what should impress a collection of judges, we will get some metrics for how printing and publishing should be measuring its performance. We aren’t sure that the Verdigris Environmental Awards will get anywhere, but it could be something worth developing. If you’re interested to take this further, get in touch. And when someone else pinches the idea, just remember that you heard it hear first!