The carbon footprint factor

Carbon emissions are the latest area of concern for the environmentally committed. How is the carbon footprint of a print job measured though, and how can print get its house in order?

The carbon footprint has, in the space of months, become an indelible concept for judging good environmental behaviour. Articles about the carbon impact of everyday activities litter the news media. Politicians are apt to be asked about offsetting that fact-finding flight to South Africa; celebrities are promising to reduce their carbon footprint; increasingly businesses are expected to account for the carbon they produce.

The equation is stunningly simple. Carbon dioxide is recognized as a factor in global warming. Consequently, reducing the amount of carbon dioxide produced will minimise damage to the planet. And if carbon dioxide reducing measures, such as planting trees or investing in renewable energy, are involved, then the impact of that carbon dioxide generating activity can be offset. Simple.

Except that there is even disagreement about how effective some of the methods of offsetting carbon actually are. Some scientists argue that forests, in temperate and colder regions at least, help cause global warming rather than counter it because they absorb heat from the sun rather than reflect it into space as snow and ice and even grasslands do. Growing palm oil as a means of both absorbing carbon through vegetation and replacing fossil fuels with bio fuels is also under attack for upsetting the eco balance of forests and putting animal species under threat.

The sounder means of offsetting carbon is through investment in alternative energy sources, such as solar, wind or wave generation, or in energy saving measures such as promoting the use of low energy light bulbs.

Nevertheless, carbon neutral, or at least carbon measurement, is becoming a factor for a wide spread of companies. Hundreds have signed up with the likes of the Carbon Neutral Company, Climate Care and Best Foot Forward which promise to manage the offsetting process. However, implicit in the idea of measurement and offsetting the carbon generated, is the idea of reducing it. The pressure on print is therefore only going to build up.

To date a handful of printers have signed up with these companies and have become carbon neutral. Print management companies are also looking to work with carbon neutral printers, even if at the moment, this is difficult to do. Only a very few printers have carbon neutral status, naturally including those in the vanguard of environmental protection: Beacon Press and Seacourt Press, which were among the very first in the world.

“It was something that we became aware of rather earlier than others,” says Richard Owers, group sales director at Beacon Press. “Our focus has always been on reducing our carbon emissions, and we have been offsetting the balance. We have now cut carbon to 1.2 tonnes per million impressions.”

The figure is calculated according to a formula devised by Defra (www.defra.gov.uk/environment.business/envrp/envkpi-guidelines.pdf) and focuses on the electricity and gas used and on transport. According to Owers this is a straightforward calculation, providing of course that that the figures exist for the amount of energy consumed and the miles travelled. The resulting figure can then be used as a benchmark as volumes of business fluctuate to check that the company’s performance is not getting worse.

Knowing the carbon impact of any product, from cradle to consumer, is going to be essential in coming years. It will be part of a company’s social responsibility agenda and carbon reduction will be a target for consumer pressure groups. Christian Aid is leading this movement, having issued a comprehensive report calling for carbon reduction and declaring that it will become carbon neutral and its printed publications will be hit as a result. The Carbon Trust has devised a logo to provide a carbon figure, a kind of ‘carbon calories counter’ which will appear on Walkers Crisps and Boots’ Botanics range of toiletries.

The consumables a printer uses, not just paper, are also cutting back on carbon, but paper has the greatest impact on the carbon footprint of any job owing to the huge amounts of energy consumed in its production. However, that energy may be generated by clean means, hydroelectric power in Scandinavia, nuclear power in France and increasing biomass generation as is planed for Tullis Russell and UPM’s Caldonian Paper in Scotland.

“It changes the focus of what constitutes an environmentally friendly paper from a decision based on fibre source to one based on the energy element. FSC does not address the climate change issues,” says Owers. “Suddenly the focus is on what the buyer wants - a low carbon footprint or forestry management.”

For Beacon the answer is that buyers want more information about how the product is created. There is real interest, he explains. “Customers are definitely getting more curious and are asking harder questions, wanting greater transparency and information. This is the only way genuine change happens.”

Print management companies are also active in developing carbon neutral programmes, notably Charterhouse (see boxout) and Four Corners, whose Responsible Print concept compensates for carbon emissions produced in the production chain. The problems are that there is a lack of real information about precisely what these emissions are and there are not sufficient carbon neutral printers for all work to qualify.

“We’re not claiming we can work out everything exactly, we are working on the best information that’s available. Looking at the data, we have come up with an average figure which is built in to our estimating software and so we can apply to any job,” says Four Corners’ Lena Johansson. “To qualify, the paper has to have a recycled content and the printer has to be carbon neutral.”

There are plenty of clients looking for advice, she says. “We investigate to see if we can go on a little lighter material, or uncoated and ask how the job will be disposed of. Then we try to give the job to a carbon neutral printer, which means that they can use the Responsible Print logo. A lot of companies feel it communicates their responsible approach to their clients and end users of the material. They don’t have to ask the questions because we have done so.”

The problem remains about the lack of real figures or standards. “There are no set rules,” says environment consultant Clare Taylor. “Everybody calculates the figures in a different way. There’s no agreement about where it begins and where it ends. We need something like an ISO to prevent double counting and print needs to document what are going to be the boundaries for printers.”

Charterhouse – CarbonNeutral Print Production

Already clients ING Direct and Sony have taken advantage of print management company Charterhouse’s CarbonNeutral Print Production, launched in August 2006, and the company says that with other clients about to commit to the scheme it hopes to offset up to 10,000 tonnes of carbon emissions in the next year.

Charterhouse has achieved carbon neutral status for its own business and has worked with the Carbon Neutral Company on a means of calculating the carbon footprint of any job, and through a small levy, promising investment to offset that impact. Its calculations were made more complex by the range of alternatives it might be faced with on specifying a job. This goes beyond the types of paper to be used and whether to print sheetfed or web. The distance between printer and destination for the print, the options on finishing and so on are balanced.

To date the work has been concentrated on one-off projects rather than contracting to purchase all print in a carbon neutral fashion. Guy Meyers of Charterhouse points out that there is a lengthy process required to get agreement from all the stakeholders within a client organisation before a carbon neutral print path can be followed. “It is such a high level decision to do this that it takes time and many customers are settled with existing arrangements.”

However, for one-off projects, which may have a particular environmental emphasis, carbon neutral print comes into its own. “Print is just a minor part of the entire budget and clients are ruled by the big picture,” he adds. “However, sustainable procurement is becoming more and more important to the major companies.”

There are three elements to the idea of carbon neutral from the Charterhouse perspective: the manufacturing and raw materials used; the print process itself; and the transport. In the first instance, the print management company will look at the carbon footprint of the substrates and materials used, based on energy consumption. For the printing element, carbon neutral status of the printer is important, but also taken into consideration will be the number of passes needed on the job and where it should be printed. Finally the distance the product travels from mill to printer, from printer to Charterhouse and from Charterhouse to client is considered.

“With recycled rather than virgin stock, emissions are reduced and we know that different types of paper have a different impact, but not down to the level of a paper merchant and brand because the information isn’t there yet,” Meyers says. “We have also found that not many printers have measured their emissions per thousand sheets, but I’m sure that it is going to go that way. At the moment we are putting in the number of print passes and doing what we can to reduce that.”

The carbon footprint of a print job

  • Job specification, from Charterhouse:
  • Brochure 2 million copies
  • Distribution in 10 European countries
  • 260 x 210mm format
  • 132pp text on 115gsm stock
  • 4pp cover on 200gsm
  • Four colour throughout
  • Carbon emissions
  • Manufacture of raw materials 1600 tonnes
  • Print 56 tonnes
  • Transport 156 tonnes
  • Total emissions 1812 tonnes