Environmental Print Leaders

Setting demanding environmental print targets and achieving them and being recognised for our achievements are all summed up by Environmental Excellence.

And we keep on doing more - this year we have eliminated the use of alcohol in the water on our presses - without using alcohol or alcohol replacements and without using the electricity hungry waterless printing method.

Our innovative SylvaPack environmental print route brings together many of the best practices and once printed we make a donation to Tree Aid to support their valuable work in some of the most vulnerable parts of Africa.

Our environmental programme now looks at:

• Renewable energy commitment. Since 1995 Severnprint has been powered by electricity from the Stroud based company Ecotricity. Severnprint was Ecotricity’s first commercial customer. Ecotricity is continuing to build new power supplies – one of the latest being the 3 wind turbines built at Avonmouth docks.

• Waste recycling – waste recycling procedures are part of the job roles of the warehouse staff. Alongside their normal duties they collect from distinct separate waste collection bins around the factory and bring them to a central point for baling, sorting or re-use.

• FSC certified – provides an assurance that the paper sourced meets strict rules about where and how the timber was sourced and grown and the way that it is replaced. This assurance extends all the way through the process up to and including printing. Only a small proportion of printers have become FSC certified and carry the chain of custody forward – Severnprint was one of the first few printers in the UK to gain this certification.

• ISO14001 – this environmental management standard controls and formalises many of our established environmental practices.

• Water reduction – Severnprint in autumn 2007 became one of the first printers to use entirely process-less printing plates. This has reduced our water consumption by 40% and eliminated the use of plate processing chemicals entirely. This means that we use 400,000 litres less water per year than we did before!

• Alcohol elimination without going waterless! – Severnprint has not gone down the route of printing using waterless printing – we have instead used an alcohol reduction programme. This has enabled us to remove alcohol entirely from the presses and rather than use alcohol substitutes we have instead used good press management to eliminate the need for alcohol.

• Inks – Most of the inks that we use are 4 colour process – black, cyan magenta and yellow. These are all vegetable oil based which means that they are naturally liquid at room temperature and do not need the addition of high VOCs.

• Recycled papers & FSC  – at the latest check half of the paper we purchased was recycled. This helps to encourage the market for recycling paper and saves a vast of amount of paper being directed into landfill. New papers are FSC sourced where available – 80% of papers are FSC certified from either new or recycled pulp.

• Renewable Cellulose based laminates – for several years Severnprint has offered a renewable alternative to plastic laminates. Laminates made from cellulose are available in both matt and gloss and provide a hard wearing finish to papers and boards. These laminates are not only made from wood – a renewable source – importantly they do not interfere with the recycling process enabling the paper to be used again.

• Environmental standards manager – Severnprint is unusual in employing a dedicated member of staff to look after the environmental improvements within the company.

• Bindery improvement. A neighbouring building was purchased and completely refurbished to a high environmental spec. The roof and cladding walls were insulated with 200mm of sheep’s wool insulation and the steel cladding is easily recycled at the end of its life as opposed to the modern method of bonding the insulation to the steel. It has provided huge savings on the heat required to warm the building. It is using heat generated from machinery within the building.

•  SylvaPack - this is an environmental print route that Severnprint operates for customers concerned about the environmental impact of their print purchase. We advise on the most suitable new or recycled paper chosen from the SylvaPack swatch. Delivery can be made using recycled boxes and a donation is made to Tree Aid for every job printed. To date over £20,000 has been raised to support Tree Aid’s programme of tree planting in sub Sahara Africa.

• Company vehicles – 2 x Toyota Prius cars are used, LPG van used for local deliveries and we are keen to buy an electric van as soon as one has a suitable range.