In a celebration at the Park Lane Dorchester hotel, Agfa Graphics Ltd won the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Manufacturing Excellence (MX) Award for Sustainable Manufacturing, sponsored by Arup, a global professional services firm headquartered in London.

On their website, Arup justifies the sponsoring of the MX award stating that “businesses with the ability to produce first-class products, using sustainable processes, need to be seen as role models. They deserve our admiration and for their achievements to be celebrated to the wider industry.”

"We highly appreciate this award as a recognition of our focus on sustainability," said Dominiek Arnout, VP Operations at Agfa Graphics. "The manufacturing industry values our continued efforts on sustainability by awarding one of our production plants, and appreciates our concern for the environment, the people and the community Agfa Graphics is part of.”

Besides the ISO9001 quality standard, Agfa Graphics streamlines their efforts to achieve sustainability in the form of energy management, workers concern and Safety Health & Environment (SH&E) compliance across the globe over their various manufacturing plants. Throughout all their production facilities Agfa Graphics adheres to local restraints and regulations and commits to all norms regarding environmental management (ISO14001), occupational safety and health management (OHSAS18001). Moreover and by implementing SERP, a global Sustainability and Energy Reduction Program, the company intends to prepare for upcoming changes and expectations based on worldwide standards.

Dominiek Arnout continues "As a sustainable supplier Agfa Graphics will be capable of delivering the right products for the market place in general, and in particular for the graphic industry where sustainable print production becomes increasingly important. Proof of this are initiatives taken by many of the leading printing and publishing companies to reduce the carbon footprint of their operations and the announcements that sustainable production of media will be an important future-relevant subject at the upcoming drupa 2012. One of the products Leeds is involved in, is our award winning :Azura TS printing plate. This uses a water based coating process and, compared to conventionally processed plates, reduces waste generation by about 80%."

The Agfa Graphics' strategy of sustainability through ongoing innovation dovetails into this general concern of the printing industry. It encouraged a global approach under one management to streamline all efforts across Agfa Graphics' manufacturing plants and to develop synergies that can be found between the various facilities.

"All of our manufacturing plants worldwide will benefit from the work that led to this MX Award for Sustainable Manufacturing through exchanging of best practices that have been benchmarked by the award winning Agfa Graphics Ltd production plant in Leeds (UK),” said Graham Cooper, Worldwide Sustainability Manager at Agfa Graphics.