The Sustainable Green Printing Partnership (SGP) is celebrating the certification of its 20th company. It’s certainly a milestone for the SGP, which, at 20 months of age, appears to have found its legs and a path forward. Up until now, printers have been buying-in to SGP certification because it can save them money (through process improvements), for market differentiation and, simply, because it is the “right thing to do.” For example, Mario Assadi, CEO of Berkeley, California based Greenerprinter, reports that his shop opted for SGP because it provided the only industry-specific green credentials, not because any customer had asked for SGP certification. That may be about to change. According to Marci Kinter, who chairs the SGP board of directors, SGP has organized a marketing committee, engaged a public relations firm, and has begun to focus on the component that has been missing from the SGP equation – market demand. Marci and Karen Gross, SGP’s Executive Director, have started to take the message of SGP directly to the print buying community – those persons within companies who have mandates to align their print procurement with corporate responsibility policies. It could prove to be a winning strategy. If SGP can become a purchasing policy preference for corporate America, it would provide a market incentive to printers for SGP participation while establishing SGP as the acknowledged corporate standard for sustainable printing. There are other evolutions afoot at SGP, and these have the potential for growing its numbers and strengthening its brand as well. SGP is developing a standard for binderies and finishers that would allow these non-integrated facilities to participate in the certification program. SGP also will be reviewing and strengthening its standard for print facilities. Public comment on the new standard is expected to begin in 2010, with implementation targeted for January, 2011. “We’re hoping that, through our marketing outreach and demand for our new bindery and finishing certification, we can grow to having 100 SGP certified companies a year from now,” says Marci Kinter. “We’d also like to expand the range of printers certified to include gravure and packaging companies as well.”