Verdigris, the environmental initiative from Digital Dots, the graphic arts research group, is pleased to welcome Pragati (India and New York) as its latest associate member.

Verdigris is a not-for-profit research initiative designed to help printers and their customers understand more about the environmental impact of print media. The goal is to raise awareness of print's positive environmental impact, through cooperative content development shared with an international network of trade publishers.

Pragati offers a wide range of high-quality offset and flexo print services to its clients in India and around the world from its offices in India and New York. It produces a wide range of products ranging from books to brochures and calendars, from high-quality paperboard cartons to luxury rigid boxes, and from flexographic labels to shrink-sleeves.  Environmental responsibility is important to Pragati.

"As citizens of this world, we should be concerned about our environment, and it also makes business sense to market oneself as an eco-friendly printer," says Narendra Paruchuri, Pragati CEO. "But irrespective of business sense, it is our duty to do our bit to preserve the environment for future generations."

Laurel Brunner, managing director of Digital Dots, says: "Verdigris is a unique initiative and to have the support of Pragati is a significant endorsement of our mission to inform and educate the world about the positive environmental impact of print. It's important that influential and global print companies like Pragati add their voice to our campaign."

Verdigris provides free research and content to a global network of industry publishers on a regular basis. Participants in the Verdigris Project can use Verdigris content to educate their printing communities about print's environmental impact, and to help raise print's positive profile. Verdigris content development is independently managed by people who know and understand print technology. Verdigris operates globally and in partnership with industry and media.

Its articles analyse the issues facing publishers and printers to help them manage their carbon footprints, while continuing to conduct a profitable business. Verdigris is also a major contributor to the development of ISO 16759, the standard for measuring the carbon footprint of print media products.

The Verdigris website provides a single point of reference, not only to access Verdigris data and information about other environmental developments, but also for links to other useful environmental websites. The Verdigris site also has a growing list of the world's printers compliant to ISO 14001, the environmental management standard.