"The Heidelberg Group is exemplary in its industry in terms of sustainability. We understand sustainability as a long-term balance of environmental protection, business, and social responsibility." These are the first sentences of the environmental policy that Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG (Heidelberg) adopted in late 2011, the practice of which is presented in its latest sustainability report. The company's environmental policy provides a binding framework for all Heidelberg divisions and external partners and suppliers as well. It defines the holistic, comprehensive approach that Heidelberg takes for ensuring sustainability. The aim is to avoid negative impacts on the environment as far as possible; if that cannot be done then to minimize them, and when this encounters limits to compensate them. From the development of products across their manufacture and use by customers to final recycling or disposal, all stages of the product lifecycle are taken into account.

The sustainability report that Heidelberg has just published for its 2011/12 financial year provides a thorough look at the company's environmental goals and measures and how it works to achieve and implement them. These activities are illustrated by descriptions of concrete projects such as the planning and building of a highly efficient cogeneration plant at the company's largest site, in Wiesloch-Walldorf, and the certification under DIN EN ISO 50001 of the energy management system of its foundry site in Amstetten. 

"No other manufacturer of printing equipment has a set of instruments for precisely analyzing and optimizing the carbon footprints of its products and services. Many of our customers very attentively monitor this process and know that we offer them a large number of environmentally friendly solutions that pave their way to green printing," says Stephan Plenz, member of Heidelberg's management board and responsible for the subject sustainability. 

Since the drupa trade show in May 2012, Heidelberg has offered its customers the additional service of ensuring the carbon neutrality of all of the machines it produces. The associated CO 2 emissions are offset by purchasing carbon credits for a reforestation project in Togo in West Africa. Recently Heidelberg began selling its Speedmaster Anicolor SX 52 press model, which already prevents environmental burdens due to its short inking unit and associated extremely low startup waste, exclusively on a carbon-neutralized basis. Heidelberg bears the associated costs.

At drupa in Düsseldorf, Heidelberg once again emphasized its leadership in the field of green printing by presenting numerous innovations including in-press energy efficiency measurement, heat recovery in the sheet drying process, and new consultancy services to help customers improve and reduce their energy use. The company's entire trade show exhibit was also carbon-neutralized: Right from the planning and tendering stages, Heidelberg stressed eco-friendly pro-cesses and the use of reusable or recyclable materials. The CO 2 emissions caused by the transport companies while their trucks traveled to Düsseldorf and back were also precisely calculated. Setup and takedown of the machines, their manufacture, and operation of them at the show were all analyzed in order to determine and offset the associated CO 2 emissions. This also applied to the materials consumed, such as paper, inks, coatings, and cleaning agents. All of the Heidelberg presses exhibited at drupa 2012 had been carbon-neutralized. 

The 2011/12 sustainability report also reports in detail on a German packaging printer as an example of how to comprehensively implement a thoroughly sus-tainable approach that also makes good business sense. 

The report is rounded out by reports and articles on environmental, business-related, and social topics and by information on sites and projects.