Top 10 green sustainable printing tips

Here are our favourite 10 simple and effective green printing tips for your sustainable business.

For the printing industry, what one business considers sustainable printing does not necessarily match another’s criteria. It might be that one business chooses to focus on reducing its carbon footprint, while another may choose waste reduction or recycling as its priority.

Whatever the driving force behind your environment, social, and governance (ESG) targets, the products and services you sell have an environmental impact. Being a sustainable business means choosing taking responsibility for that impact, and choosing sustainable options, every time.

Here are 10 simple and effective green printing tips that will boost your business’ sustainability, without compromising the end product.

1. Choose recycled paper

Producing recycled paper uses up to 70% less energy consumption than the production of virgin paper. The production process of recycled paper also uses less water than virgin paper making.

This is because the majority of all the energy used to produce paper, is used in the pulping process. It’s easier – and therefore environmentally friendlier – to pulp paper that has been recycled. In fact, pulping gets progressively easier the more times its is recycled. Paper can be recycled back into paper as many as seven times. That’s why eco-friendly printers choose to use recycled paper, wherever possible.

2. Choose carbon balanced paper

If you’re looking for ways to lower your company’s carbon footprint, opt for carbon balanced paper. By choosing carbon balanced paper, you are helping to protect and preserve forests and habitats, endangered species and wildlife, throughout the world. You are demonstrating a commitment to tackle climate change, lower your carbon impact, and be a stand-out sustainable business.

Galloways are proud to be one of only 24% of UK businesses actively measuring average carbon emissions. We go further by offsetting – balancing the impacts of our business carbon emissions through our partnership with World Land Trust. We can also carbon balance the paper we buy on behalf of our customers. Choosing Carbon Balanced Paper is a sustainable choice that will help your business meet, and exceed, environmental policy targets effectively, and affordably. Your print projects are also entitled to bear the instantly-recognisable Carbon Balanced logo.

3. Choose a carbon balanced printer

To achieve Carbon Balanced Print (see number 4 in our list), you need a Carbon Balanced Printer. Carbon Balanced Printer accreditation recognises excellence in environmental performance across a print company’s entire operations and services. The UK has only a few certified Carbon Balanced Printers. Galloways is one of them.

4. Choose carbon balanced print

Carbon Balanced Print is produced by a Carbon Balanced Printer on Carbon Balanced Paper. Opting for Carbon Balanced Print enables companies to offset (balance) the unavoidable carbon impact of their printed materials. It’s a simple choice, with significant benefits.

We can provide our customers valid data to help measure their own net-zero strategy. So, based on the print solutions we have previously provided, we can even tell you what your impact could have been if you’d already made the switch to Carbon Balanced paper.

We are proud to offer our customers carbon balanced print, and carbon balanced paper-based packaging.

5. Choose to minimise waste

Our print services can help you to remove waste from the workflow, when printing your marketing materials and paper products. Our web to print option allows you to print exactly what you need, when you need it, no matter how small the print job.

The environmental impact of your print job is as small as your print run. As there’s minimal wasted paper, you’re only paying for what you need, minimising costs.

We have achieved less than 1% wastage average across the year, and less than 100 sheets of make waste using out litho technology. This is allowing the use of creative papers, such as GF Smith and Fedrigoni, as well as using Pantone colours to make your design pop when designing projects.

Galloways won’t waste your print materials, your time, or your budget.

6. Choose World Land Trust

World Land Trust (WLT) is an international conservation charity that protects the world’s most biologically significant and threatened habitats. Working through a network of partner organisations around the world, WLT funds the creation of reserves and provides permanent protection for habitats and wildlife.

In 2005, the international World Land Trust (WLT) established its Carbon Balanced Programme. The programme is an initiative that provides individuals and organisations with an effective method of fighting climate change, and lower their carbon impact.

Galloways is balancing, or offsetting, the equivalent of 207 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Our balancing commitment is enabling World Land Trust to protect and restore 39,537 square metres of threatened tropical habitat in Ecuador, Mexico, and Vietnam.

To date, the Carbon Balanced Print and Paper programme has enabled WLT to offset more than 250,000 tonnes of CO2. Our World Land Trust Carbon Balanced Certification is just one part of our strategy to reduce our environmental impact.

7. Choose the Forest Stewardship Council

The original pioneers of forest certification, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) promotes the responsible management of the world’s forests, bringing together experts from the “environmental, economic, and social spheres”. Choosing the FSC means you are joining a revolutionary concept: a voluntary, market-based approach that would improve forestry practices worldwide.

Galloways uses paper from forests that bear the FSC’s Chain of Custody Certification. This certification guarantees that the paper came from a sustainably managed forest.

8. Choose eco-friendly printing products

Once, chlorine-based bleaches were once used for printing. The unfortunate by-product of this historical printing method was the release of harmful methane and ozone into the air.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases trap sunlight when it hits the earth’s surface, rather than allowing it to go back into the atmosphere. That means the earth heats up – the greenhouse effect – which is contributing to the climate change crisis. Methane is the primary contributor to the formation of the hazardous greenhouse gas, ground-level ozone, a dangerous air pollutant.

Fortunately, printing has come a long way. Hazards like these are thankfully a thing of the past. Modern printing presses are more efficient. They use considerably less power and require fewer chemicals. This, along with vegetable oil-based inks instead of petroleum-based traditional ink, helps to provide a cleaner, greener, print.

9. Choose state-of-the-art technology

New technologies have in turn led to new methodologies, meaning our world of printing processes operates cleaner, more efficiently, and with greater environmental awareness than ever before.

Our Heidelberg Speedmaster CX102 is one of the most efficient printing press in the world, just one of our technological choices to improve our sustainability. Our web-to-print service, POD, can take you from proof to print in less than 30 minutes. Our Stitchliner Mark 3 can produce up to 6,000 books in an hour. Our Prinect scalable workflow solution has made us more efficient and streamlined. That’s why we’re able to offer cost-effective, sustainable print.

10. Choose a sustainable printer

We offer all this, and more. Choose Galloways. Call us today, on 01625 870000.