Often when we are speaking of environmental sustainability in the printing industry, we focus our attention on paper. Paper considerations are extremely important, of course, and later this week we will discuss that a bit more, but there are also many other things printing businesses can do to make their operations more sustainable. Our interview this week with Trish Fritz of the GPO provided some good insight. While I have spoken with many printing firms about there environmental initiatives, and there is some terrific work being done, two companies stand out in my mind, and I wanted to briefly spotlight them here to both give them recognition for their environmental positions and to share what they are doing in case others want to follow suit.

Randy Herron positions Herron Printing as a one-stop shop for “Green” commercial printing. Herron Printing is located in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and has 11 employees, generating revenues of more than $1.5 million.

Herron is dedicated to making his operation as environmentally friendly as possible. He is a certified member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership. His company car is a hybrid Toyota Prius that gets up to 48 miles per gallon. The company recycles all paper waste and cardboard and uses vegetable-based (linseed oil) inks. And Herron has chosen to install a Presstek 34DI digital offset press with on-press chemistry-free platemaking to replace an existing conventional four-color press. “We needed to produce better quality,” he says, “in order to stay competitive.  Although we already had installed chemistry-free platemaking for our existing press, we chose to purchase a DI press rather than a five-color press because of its environmental benefits and its high level of efficiency.”