The Verdigris Blog by 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, Fujifilm, HP, Kodak, Miraclon, Ricoh, Spindrift, Splash PR, Unity Publishing and Xeikon.

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Environmentally friendly electronics?

Mon, 18/01/2021 - 10:57

Laurel-2018.jpgThe weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner

Has to be a contradiction in terms, right? Environmentally friendly print might also be a contradiction in terms for many people. There are still far too folk who don’t get that paper is a sustainable resource, or that print has a one time carbon footprint. It’s recyclable and an independent archive that’s easy and convenient to access. Its user interface is simple, its accessibility universal and it’s gorgeous. Even if you never read the books you buy, you own them because they declare something of yourself to the world. Look at all those carefully curated backdrops on Zoom.

Global Flexo Innovation awards judging underway

Mon, 04/01/2021 - 13:17

medium_laurel2015.jpgThe weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner

These awards, perhaps better known as the Kodak Flexcel Awards, have been around for several years. They were established in the tenth anniversary year of the Flexcel NX plate system’s introduction. The idea was, and is, to encourage excellence in flexography. Now under the stewardship of Miraclon, entries are coming in for the 2021 prizes. Companies from across the globe are competing in four award categories, and the awards are open to any user of the Kodak Flexcel NX plate production system.

Covid-19 collapse

Mon, 21/12/2020 - 10:48

medium_2015_Laurel B.jpgThe weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner

Thanks to the corona virus there have been many casualities in the graphics industry and its supply chains over the last few months. Companies and individuals are facing enormous change, most of it pretty nasty. From the many staff whom the corona virus has made redundant, to the families and individuals losing loved ones, this virus has left none of us untouched. In the graphics industry we have already lost many printing companies, either to the receivers, closure or through consolidation. The industry’s shape is changing, moving faster away from the traditional analogue model towards a fully digital one.

Drupa drooping and our industry’s sustainability

Mon, 07/12/2020 - 08:53

Laurel-2018.jpgThe weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner

What a year. What a horrible, horrible year. All the uncertainty, the distress, the loss, and the total erosion of the very foundations on which most peoples’ lives are based. Confidence is fragile and the graphics industry, like so many other sectors, faces crisis. But it’s not just about Covid. Many parts of our industry have been declining for years. We need look no further for a model of that decline than to drupa.

Consumer pressure for packaging recyclability works

Mon, 23/11/2020 - 11:22

medium_laurel2015.jpgThe weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner

Packaging printers are under constant pressure to improve their environmental footprints. But it’s generally the brands who get it in the neck from consumer groups pressuring for change. That is likely to be the case for a while, although it isn’t necessarily a safe assumption to think printing companies are immune. In the UK recently an environmental group managed to prevent three newspaper printing plants from getting their papers out to newsagents. The protesters’ gripe was not on the basis that printing is bad for the environment, but that the national press does not provide enough coverage of environmental concerns.

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