Cut down on water use by putting a brick in the toilet cistern, says Bradley Jones, sales director at MCR Print.

"Additionally, make it a business policy to purchase office supplies and furniture from recycled materials and sustainable sources. This includes everything from pens and paper to chairs and desks."

Get involved with projects, such as Gate-to-Customer’s Gate, says Bertrand Lousteau, marketing director, publications inks Europe at Sun Chemical.

“To be able to reduce carbon emissions, you need to be able to measure your carbon footprint. Projects such as the Gate-to-Customer’s Gate have helped us do that.

“It involved an assessment of eight different ink products produced at seven different facilities in the US and Europe. The aim was to quantify a baseline carbon footprint for each product relevant to the selected production facilities.

“This initiative focused on quantifying the greenhouse gases (GHGs) produced during the manufacturing and distribution. As a result, Sun Chemical is detailing all of the inputs, outputs and process steps involved in their manufacture and distribution, as well as all the site-specific inputs such as electricity usage, fuel consumption and packaging materials. 

“Doing this helped to quantify the GHG emissions and the corresponding global warming potential per pound or kilogram of ink coming from our manufacturing processes.”

Replacing old printers with new devices can save 30% less electricity than a device from three years ago, says Adam Seabrook, operations manager at First Choice Business Systems.

“Look at the printing equipment you have and think about whether it provides you with the most environmentally friendly option. By replacing many standalone devices with a single multifunction device, for example, you can significantly reduce the amount of energy used by your machines.

“Replacing old printers with new devices also allows you to take advantage of newer, more energy efficient systems. Advances in technology mean that some new printers use 30% less electricity than a device from just three years ago.

“If you decide to upgrade, also consider the technology it uses. For example, a solid ink device like the Xerox ColorQube eliminates one of the biggest wastages in printing - cartridge waste - since it doesn’t use cartridges at all.

"We recognised that the environmental credentials of this machine are so strong that we decided to purchase one to use in-house ourselves.”

 Install a reduced chemistry plate to dramatically reduce the amount of waste chemistry produced, says Carousel Envelopes graphics manager Brian Sissons.

“We have been exploring a number of avenues regarding the environment, we know it is important for our customers as well as ourselves.
 
“Having installed the CTP and confirmed the benefits of being self supported, we explored avenues that would allow a way of being greener.
 
“We are now very close to signing an agreement with Fujifilm via Offset Supplies to use the Fuji Pro-V plates. This is a reduced chemistry plate and will dramatically reduce the amount of waste chemistry we currently produce.”

Reduce electricity consumption by almost 30% with a series of small, common sense steps, says Warren Board operations director David Whitaker.

“Before investing in new plant or equipment, gain the commitment of your staff to the principles of reduction, recycling and re-use. Encourage their ideas and suggestions, they may surprise you.

“We reduced our electricity consumption after carrying out a few small steps and with a commitment from everyone involved to make them work.”

 Use an environmentally friendly processor and achieve chemistry savings of 30%, says Wyke Printers plateroom manager Peter Hancock

The company has installed Fujifilm's FLH-Z 125 processor and Brillia LH-PJE plates, which Hancock says is chemically efficient.

The FLH-Z 125 processor is designed mainly for use with Fujifilm's Brillia HD LH-PJE thermal plates. According to the company, the processor can achieve consistent, high quality plate production with minimal chemistry usage.

Hancock says: "Our chemistry usage is down 30%, which means considerable cost savings as well as lowering our environmental impact.

“We are also saving a great amount of time as the plate consistency has improved significantly with virtually no remakes any more.

“Before, we lost 15 minutes every time a plate had to be taken off the press to be remade, which happened fairly often. As we no longer need to remake the plates, our turnaround times are shorter and we can process more jobs during any one day."

 

Improved energy efficiency is the fastest and cheapest way to reduce CO2, says Bertrand Lousteau, Sun Chemical marketing director, publication inks and project leader for the PrintCity Alliance Sustainability Energy & Efficiency report.

“Investment in available technologies would cut carbon emissions by about half of the amount needed to stabilise them.

“There are two other realities concerning energy: supply is limited and expensive, and the cheapest kW of energy is the one not used. The McKinsey Global Institute in 2007 concluded that investment in energy efficiency of about $170bn-a-year worldwide would yield a profit of about 17%.

“A responsible company environmental policy has compelling business advantages – opportunities to reduce costs, increase competitiveness, become more innovative and enhance staff and customer confidence, while avoiding the potentially expensive risks of non-compliance. Any waste reduction goes immediately to the bottom line and, generally, this will also reduce energy demand and associated carbon emissions.

“The environment is also an excellent business opportunity for printers to review with their customers and suppliers how to optimise the efficiency of the process value chain within which they all work.”

Cut the cost of electricity and gas bills by increasing employer awareness, says First Class Post managing director Malcolm Carter.

"Increase employee awareness with regard to workplace areas that are not constantly in use. A label placed close to all light switches reminds staff to extinguish lights when offices, canteens or store rooms are not occupied.

"'This switch is multi-functional – it turns off as well as on!' is the message printed. By introducing this initially as a type of humorous informative instruction that made employees take notice, it has now been applied to all areas of the offices and factory.

"During the summer months, when we have more natural daylight for longer periods of time, both of our warehouses operate without any artificial light, which as you can imagine has cut the energy usage of First Class Post and consequently benefited the company by cutting the cost of energy bills."

Use vegetable inks on presses instead of alcohol and save money, says Phil Payter, PPG founder and managing director.

"We never run presses with alcohol, but use only vegetable inks. I don't understand why anyone would go to the trouble of using recycled paper and then cover it with chemicals.

"These methods are not only environmentally sound, but save the company around £20,000 a year."

"Have all your green strategies in place to help gain multiple accreditations at the same time - especially now as green paper stocks are coming down in price," says Michael Quibell, director of Quentin Press, part of the Gemini Group.

"From a printer's point of view it doesn't actually cost more to use FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) paper. When it was first introduced the recession was beginning to hit so there weren't many companies looking to do it, meaning it tended to be expensive.

"Now it's much more common so paper merchants have had to ensure that the price of FSC paper is competitive. Subsequently most papers are now FSC. Quentin Press is FSC and PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) accredited and has ISO 14001, an internationally-recognised standard for Environmental Management Systems.

"There is a rigorous auditing process involved in achieving these accreditations and the disciplines that accompany this do tend to make a company more efficient; many of these disciplines are almost identical to ISO 9001, therefore we have now achieved that standard as well. It has definitely given us an advantage when tendering for contracts; councils, universities and the NHS tend to have very stringent green policies in place already and look for accredited companies as a way of filtering down the huge number of responses they receive."

Grant Lush, head of marketing and client services at OTM, says it pays, both financially and environmentally, do to some number crunching.

At home, we know it's best practice to switch off lights when we leave the room, to change to energy-saving bulbs and not to leave the TV on standby. 

At work, no matter how good our energy saving initiatives, we have to leave the company on standby. For example, in an IT-driven company like ours, the servers are always whirring away supported by their cooling units.

To understand just how much energy is being used, or wasted, we use the half hourly data available online from our electricity provider. This is really valuable data. It can focus the mind and raise such questions as what was burning electricity on Saturday night, Sunday morning or even Christmas Day. 

If you're really clever you can relate usage to production output at specific times of the day, week or year.

We relied on such data when we targeted reduction of energy wasted during weekend closedown.

Over a year, we measured a set period of 6pm Saturday to 6am Sunday – a time at which there is never any overtime working to skew the usage figures. 

Through improved close-down procedures, investment in aircon timers and other initiatives, we achieved a reduction of 34% and a knock-on affect to annual usage.

The Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme is targeting companies whose electricity is measured through half-hourly meters, which will highlight where this data is available. 

There are also schemes available, for a fee, where all your utilities can be monitored remotely and analysed for you.
However you do it, it pays to do a little number crunching.

Buy locally and support local economies while reducing your environmental footprint, says Christina Norton, Seriously Responsible Print's managing director.

"Look at where you procure the supplies for your business and ask if there's someone based in the same town as you that could fit your outsourcing needs.

"Make it part of your corporate and social responsibility policy to make it a first choice to source goods and services from within your local community wherever possible.

"There will always be some that inevitably have to come from out of town, but local suppliers account for around 70% of all our outsourcing requirements."

Monitor energy consumption by purchasing a device such as EnergyPro, which can be connected to any appliance or piece of equipment, says GI Direct sales director Patrick Headley.

"It may sound obvious, but a lot of equipment is left on unnecessarily overnight or at weekends. By putting policies in place to maximise switching off, you engage your staff, minimise your environmental impact and save money.

"Devices such as EnergyPro can be connected to any appliance or piece of equipment. Data regarding energy usage can then be collected, analysed and monitored on a regular basis to ensure it is used efficiently.

"Areas of possible savings can be identified and equipment can then be switched off. In some cases, it may also highlight obsolete infrastructure which would benefit from being replaced with a more environmentally friendly alternative." 

Segregation of waste products to prevent waste streams going to landfill is all very good, but remember to investigate how your segregated waste is being dealt with, says Philip Reed, Redlin's environmental manager.

"Contact your waste contractor and confirm what happens to each segregated waste stream – if any continues to go to landfill, then the segregation process is unnecessary or a new contractor may have to be found.

"For example, various contractors treat waste toner cartridges differently. Some may reuse them, some may crush and reuse the plastic, others just send to landfill.

"We know that each of the 11 waste products we segregate is treated appropriately and that resources are concentrated on the most efficient areas – for example, the waste oil is made into low-grade fuel and our aluminum plates are melted down and reused as raw material.

"Also, companies shouldn't ignore positive aspects that they may be involved in, such as donating excess stock to schools, tree planting initiatives and environmental education for customers and suppliers.

"Over the summer, we have run a number of print knowledge seminars that include a session on environmentally friendly print. The session takes the full life cycle of the item into account, but focuses on the areas a printer can influence – for example, explaining the difference between recycled paper and virgin fibre that comes from well-managed forests.

"The feedback we've had from our customers has been really positive with many telling us that the knowledge has helped them in their day-to-day roles."

A single point of contact between your business and the environmental certification body makes the process simple and faster, says Elaine Murray, Chesapeake's material development manager.

"A central management and operating system for all participating sites will reduce your audit and certification fees.

"As a result, all sites have the same chain-of-custody number, which simplifies artwork modifications and offers an immediate benefit where more than one site supplies a single customer."