Your training partner for
publishing's digital future

Should companies make 'greening' the publishing process a priority?

92% of you said 'Yes'

This is the result of an online survey we conducted earlier this year. And, partly as a result of your feedback, we launched a one-day event in Greening the Supply Chain, which ran for the first time on 5 July and is next scheduled for 5 December.

This new course is all about showing you how you can reduce your impact on the environment AND save time and money.

According to Phil Harris of Impact Publishing, one of the tutors for the new course:

"Our paper consumption is increasing despite other alternatives for communicating such as PDF, the internet and mobile devices.

"In the UK alone, in excess of 12.5 million tonnes of paper and board are printed each year. The combined CO2 output for manufacturing and printing this volume of substrate amounts to over 32 million tonnes.

"If as a whole print consumption were reduced by just 15%, 4.8 million tonnes of CO2 would be prevented from entering the atmosphere – that's the equivalent weight of 9,600 jumbo jets! Water, electrical and landfill resources are also conserved and further reductions can be achieved through careful planning and your choice of printer and paper."

The case for publishers reducing their impact on the environment is therefore clear. What's not so straightforward is how to go about it. And while there is far more that can be done than simply specifying recycled paper, it shouldn't be an added burden to overstressed production departments.

The new course is designed to take the pressure off already busy production managers and directors. It shows how the production process can be audited for its green credentials at the same time as making it more efficient. It also highlights the need to involve people at every stage of the process, so that those involved in planning publication, estimating run length, etc. all have an input.

And then there are, of course, the nuts and bolts of making the printing process as environmentally friendly as possible.

This has to be one of the biggest challenges facing the world of publishing today and, as the training provider for the industry, we're delighted to be able to play a part in helping publishers deal with it.

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