The PrintCity Alliance completed a successful first Graphic Industry Supply Chain Workshop on the subject Carbon Footprint & Energy Efficiency during February 2010 in Munich.

The keynote speaker was Gary Marshall from the UK printing group Polestar, an early adopter of a proactive carbon and energy reduction programme. "We must look at the whole picture and remember that some of our environmental efforts are often still 'work-in-progress'. Polestar seeks solutions to manage its Carbon Footprint creatively and economically, in tandem with our customers and suppliers. The future needs more joined-up thinking that crosses over the full industry supply chain."

Over 30 attendees from several countries participated and presentations were made by PrintCity members UPM, Sun Chemical, manroland plus other guest speakers including: Benoit Moreau, Environment Manager for the French Printers Association, James Patterson from Environ and Laurel Brunner of Verdigris / Digital Dots.

The target of this first PrintCity Carbon Footprint & Energy Efficiency workshop was to exchange information about 'best practice' across the whole supply chain and to connect the competence (knowledge) of members and international businesses on this important environmental topic.

Structured PrintCity workshops of this type provide an ideal opportunity for knowledge sharing with industry participants through audience interaction. In this way participants jointly reach conclusions on how we can improve the printing & packaging industry's overall process performance regarding long term environmental opportunities.

Topics discussed at this workshop on February 17th included:
- The Carbon Dynamic – Nigel Wells
- Carbon Footprint – a Printers Perspective – Gary Marshall
- Carbon Footprint for Printers & Suppliers – Benoit Moreau
- Overview of Standards & Guidelines – Laurel Brunner
- Carbon Footprinting & Energy Efficiency Initiatives of Different Industry Sectors – Gabrielle Wende of UPM (paper), Vincent Krafft of manroland (presses) and Dr Bertrand Lousteau of Sun Chemical (inks)
- Applying Carbon Footprinting & Energy Efficiency – James Patterson

The workshop was introduced by John Dangelmaier, President of the PrintCity Alliance and was hosted by Nigel Wells, also from the PrintCity team.

Workshop Conclusions
There was a clear consensus that we needed a single, international and integrated approach to Carbon Footprinting across the complete graphic industry value chain. The current sector or national approaches are confusing, costly and complex – in the future we need to be clear, concise and credible. Initiatives by Intergraf and ISO are first steps in this direction, which PrintCity Alliance members fully support.

The most important objective is to use Carbon Footprinting as an evaluation tool to identify where greenhouse gas emissions and energy usage can be reduced. It is an important internal benchmarking tool to identify where to make improvements.  A key metric is to measure energy reduction in kWh as well as in Carbon Dioxide equivalent, because the latter can be distorted by variable energy sources.

Laurel Brunner representing the Verdigris project commented, "The International Standards Organisation's specification currently under consideration will unify the industry's carbon footprinting efforts, and support printers' and print buyers' continued investment in sustainable media."

James Patterson of Environ quoted, "Life cycle costs are key to carbon management and energy efficiency. Much more understanding is needed in this area by all parties involved."

Benoit Moreau of the French Printers Association commented, "The Carbon Footprint initiative is not only a measurement tool but also part of a methodology to help reduce emissions of all greenhouse gases. We have to crosslink all parts of the graphic chain to be more efficient."

Dr. Volkhard Maess from Océ stated how important the theme of this Workshop was, "In R&D you have to take into consideration the future - let's say the next ten years. Therefore we include in our way of thinking during development of future digital production printing systems, not only today's but tomorrow's environmental concerns and regulations. My expectations to find some useful and good information were fulfilled today."

Attendees commented positively on the entire workshop day, confirming that they had never before seen such a good overview about current and proposed environmental standards and specifications. In addition all participants appreciated the good advice and open discussion about applying environmental best practice in their own companies – printers and suppliers.

According to Nigel Wells, PrintCity Project Manager and workshop initiator, "PrintCity Alliance Workshops form part of our ongoing work to share knowledge on complex subjects, through our members 'connection of competence' process capability and expertise. This workshop has been very informative for attendees & presenters alike and has contributed to our special report 'Carbon Footprint & Energy Efficiency' that will be released later this year."