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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Standard Practise & ISO 16759

Mon, 30/04/2012 - 07:10

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner

These days standards govern every part of a successful printer’s life. Many printers choose to gain accreditation because they understand it’s a good way to keep demanding customers happy. Or because they want to measure their business against a set of external metrics. More and more printers are gaining accreditation to standards such as ISO 9001 for a business’s quality management and ISO 14001 for environmental management.

ISO 9001 is a generic standard relevant for all types of business. It specifies the requirements of a company’s quality management systems. ISO 14001 is part of a series of environmental management standards that specify requirements for managing the environmental aspects of the business. Like ISO 9001 it is a generic standard that any company can use, regardless of business sector.

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VITO

Mon, 23/04/2012 - 11:21

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner

Agfa Graphics has been working with an independent Flemish institute to find out more about print’s environmental impact, with some interesting results. VITO specialises in research into energy, environment and materials, and has been around for some thirty years. VITO has done a carbon footprint analysis of several of Agfa’s plate technologies, however its conclusions are relevant for all plate technologies.

According to VITO’s research, plate manufacturing and prepress activities can account for some 20% of the total Product Carbon Footprint of a printing plate, with the balance in raw material extraction and processing. Obviously the most recent printing plate technologies have the lowest impact, since they have generally been designed with efficiency and environmental friendliness in mind. The VITO report notes that there is a clear convergence in the industry between economic and ecological benefits of technologies use for print media production.

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Welcome

Mon, 16/04/2012 - 14:58

The weekly Verdigris blog by Laurel Brunner

Welcome to our weekly Verdigris blog. This is the first of our blogs about what is going on with the Verdigris project, dealing with matters environmental for the printing industry.

As we slide into the last few weeks of the pre drupa madness however, we are all being hit with waves of technology news that threaten to overwhelm the environmental initiatives happening at the show. There will be several worthy efforts to engage printers and their customers with a green agenda, ranging from the rather posh event hosted by the World Print & Communication Forum which costs €175 for a session running 09:00 to 15:00 on the 10th May. The €175 is to cover the cost of lunch and expenses, as this is a nonprofit event. Possibly matters green could get superceded by matters spargel and Riesling!