Webinar panelists say print is green

The first of the Awards webinar titled, What is your green quotient?, jointly organised by PrintWeek India and ITC-PSPD was hosted on 23 July. The 90-minute webinar saw two case studies, The Hindu and Repro India, plus presentations by S N Venkatraman, vice president - marketing at ITC's paperboards and specialty papers division (PSPD) and, N Muthusezhiyan of CII Godrej GBC, which helps companies gauge their eco-friendly quotient.

24 Jul 2015 | By PrintWeek India

Webinar panelists say print is green

Ramu Ramanathan, editor of PrintWeek India presented a case study of the production plant of The Hindu, located in Coimbatore. The printing facility started its operations in April 2007 and is spread across 20 acres of a lush green environment. The plant has all the facilities to support the

printing of a newspaper, from pre-press to press to post-press.

 

Ramanathan rushed through the green checklist and highlighted the details of The Hindu's initiatives on the green front plus focussed on projects that enable energy efficiency and reduction. Despite the fact that The Hindu prints the papers on heatset, it is committed to the cause of the environment. He highlighted The Hindu's green publishing efforts.

 

Venkatraman spoke of the green journey at ITC's PSP division. He explained what a printer needs to do to "Go Green".

 

He said, a print unit should adopt a low carbon growth path and use renewable energy resources, In addition, there should be energy conservation through audits, benchmarking and target setting for progressively reducing specific energy consumption and finally, continuous monitoring and review of energy performance through an organisation-wide data management system.

 

Venkatraman also spoke about conducting water audits, benchmarking and implementation of best practices for reducing water intake. Plus he pointed out how to treat effluent so as to ensure that discharge quality meets the regulatory requirements and progresses towards recycling of all treated water.

 

Finally, he spoke of resource conservation and how to reduce specific waste generation at units through constant monitoring and improvement of efficiencies in material utilisation; as well as segregation at source which ensures maximum reuse and recycling of waste by using this approach.

 

Vijay Jadhav, the unit head of Repro India, the winner of the first PWI Green Printing Company of the Year 2014, made a presentation on how the book factory deployed environmentally-friendly ways and methods in the printing business.

 

Repro India is a certified ISO 9001-2008, ISO14000–2004, FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) & PEFC (Programme for Endorsement for Forest Certification) for quality, environment and green initiative practices.

 

“We bring efficiencies to our customer’s value chain by providing them a one-stop solution to their needs, right from managing and repurposing content, to printing and binding to delivery anywhere across the globe,” said Jadhav of Repro India. This was one of the triggers for Repro, what with customers insisting on compliance and "certifications of ISO 14001, FSC/PEFC, Fogra and environment initiatives".

 

Jadhav spoke of the theme of Reduce, Re-use and Recycle. Jadhav also emphasised on re-engineering at Repro, which was achieved through conversion of a heatset machine to coldset. For this, the team developed new ink, saved on LPG gas, saving of electricity, and reduction in paper

wastage. Plus the use of Vision punch IPO conventional punching/bending which facilitated faster registration and due to reduced make-ready time, conserved the energy.

 

Finally, Jadhav mentioned how the use of CIP3 and ink optimiser benefitted the company in terms of direct transfer of data from pre-press to press, reduction in makeready time and waste; reduction in set-off issue and reduction ink usage.

 

"Sustainability can increase sales and make print businesses more profitable," N Muthusezhiyan, the energy and sustainability expert at CII Godrej GBC, said during the webinar on Thursday.

 

A green specialist, Muthusezhiyan explained how getting a ‘GreenCo Rating System’ certification can improve the commercial performance of a business, and how to leverage it to attract new customers and grow sales.

 

In his presentation, Muthusezhiyan showed how ten top GreenCo companies saved Rs 168 million. This, he felt, was possible through a multi-tiered approach. He added, “In the case of quality management and environment management systems, implementing the protocols and practices required to obtain certification can streamline and improve operations, leading to greater efficiency and, most importantly, profitability."

 

Later, he shed light on what can be done and highlight some strategies that the Indian print and packaging firms have successfully used. There was an interesting discussion about how print and paper should go on the offensive companies breaking rules with deceptive claims encouraging

consumers to ditch paper for digital.

 

A recent study found 70% of telecoms businesses, 43% of major banks and 30% of public listed companies made inaccurate claims. If these companies are challenged as it is happening in Europe, 82% of them "will change their marketing messages".

 

Today, more than half of American Fortune 500 companies are said to be offenders - and using unsubstantiated and misleading environmental claims.

 

The recording of the 'What's your Green Quotient' webinar will soon be made available on the PrintWeek India website. 

 

The second webinar in the series will focus on digital print in India.

 

For further details about the webinar, write to priyaiyer@haymarket.co.in / monica@haymarket.co.in