There are a million and one ways that print companies can improve their environmental performance, and Chris Fowler International, the financial print specialist based just outside the City of London, is working through the list.
Some of the changes can be tiny, others more substantial, but as a way of formalising green credentials though, the attainment of ISO 14001 accreditation is the big one. Chris Fowler was awarded that certificate in November 2007, and the company’s passion for environmental improvements currently sees it striding on towards further achievement.
Kevin Eyers, the managing director of Chris Fowler International, says the firm pursued ISO 14001 for two very important reasons: “Firstly, the management team and all the staff here believe with a passion in minimising the impact that we have on our world, for ourselves and subsequent generations, and for most of us this system is just a logical extension of what we already do at home.
“Secondly, and quite rightly, our clients are beginning to demand such credentials as ISO 14001, in order for us to remain or become a supplier. So in both cases we want to do it, we should do it, and we have done it.”
Chris Fowler International gained the ISO accreditation just six weeks after consultants came in to help it through the process. Such was the print company’s prior commitment to pushing ahead with green initiatives that much of the work had already been carried out.
Eyers continues: “The consultants said we were doing everything and more already, and all we hadn’t done was write up the documentation. We also have FSC chain of custody accreditation; next is PEFC and we’re also looking at carbon neutral as another step. That’s an exciting development but some of our print is flown around the globe, so determining the carbon footprint will be complex.”
Chris Fowler International’s split printing capability has helped to reduce the volume of print requiring long haul distribution already however. The company has print facilities in both New York and Hong Kong and another eight affiliates around the world.
“What we are saying to clients is take advantage of distributed print: in other words, print at the nearest print location to your clients. It reduces the cost of distribution and saves clients money because it’s the long haul that’s costly,” says sales director Roy Carthew.
Such a mode of operation is assisted by Chris Fowler International being able to offer both litho and digital printing (black and white and colour) from London, New York and Hong Kong. With the kind of overnight financial research documents, often 2-colour jobs, that are the company’s bread and butter, run lengths are often fairly short - around the 1,000 copies mark, although still competitive up to 5,000 copies. The factory is therefore geared towards quick turnaround work. Carthew estimates that it produces around 400 individual jobs every week.
Such a high rate of turnover means that Chris Fowler International is a substantial consumer of printing plates. This area of its operation is also set for attention in the company’s environmental push with the intention of a move towards using processless plates sometime in the future, thereby reducing the need to use harmful chemicals. At this stage, says Eyers, the company is still assessing the options.
There is a host of other initiatives that Chris Fowler International have implemented, from things like installing a Fairtrade coffee machine but not using vending machine cups as they are waxed and cannot be recycled, to a rationalisation of paper supply which has reduced the number of suppliers Chris Fowler uses from eight down to two.
Following that has been the adoption of two FSC-certified paper stocks as standard (Howard Smith’s regency Satin coated paper and Antalis’ Edixion Laser uncoated), which now account for 90% of the paper the company prints on.
Eyers considers that after recent hard times for UK paper mills, the environmental imperative will begin to make their very proximity to end users an advantage. He says: “I believe that the way the market is going you need proximity, and UK mills will do better and better. People will start to say it’s crazy to have all these environmental initiatives and then get your paper from abroad. The view will be to produce where you need to sell. There are a lot of opportunities there that we have not yet exploited.”
Chris Fowler International has identified another paper-related opportunity that carries the promise of both environmental and cost-saving benefits. It has studied its paper consumption, and found that 30% of the paper it buys is wasted every year – and Chris Fowler International buys £1 million worth of paper annually. Reckons that a quarter of that waste is due to having to trim paper sheets from SRA2 size down to that required.
“You will always have a proportion of waste, but my feeling is that we could get it down to 15%-20% and that’s significant profit,” says Eyers. More efficient production will provide more press capacity, so more can be taken on, and the benefit can be felt by clients and by Chris Fowler's bottom line.
"When you look at the business that way it’s a win-win and we don’t have to buy more capacity,” he adds. Eyers and Carthew acknowledge that being environmentally smart is fast becoming an absolute must for a print company if it wants to win work, with Carthew asserting that “we believe that in the near future you won’t even get on the list without ISO 14001, and it’s the same with FSC”.
“Now, when we look at new equipment we’re asking how efficient its energy consumption is – and in years gone by that would not even have crossed most printers’ minds. We want to know how many of the components can be recycled, and what the carbon footprint is. The vast majority of printers will have to offer these same things because it’s in more and more tenders these days – the bigger the contract, the more important,” says Carthew.
The response of Chris Fowler International’s staff has been gratifying. There are around 80 people employed at the Bermondsey site which the company acquired as part of a deal to buy the financial print arm of Williams lea seven years ago.
Eyers picks up the thread once more: “We demand a lot from our people. We want them involved and ISO 14001 was extremely well received by all the staff. The passion of the management team for this is genuine. Having this conversation is not at all tough because we really believe in what we are doing here.”
The company is increasingly doing more than the overnight financial print on which its success has been based. Higher quality commercial print is gaining in importance, with Chris Fowler having the ability to produce up to ‘five back five’ work such as marketing material. Recently, the offering has expanded further, and Chris Fowler International now has a burgeoning business in short run book production.
The company was the world’s first user of the Watkiss PowerSquare 200 – a device fitted to the back of certain digital print engines that can take a 200-page publication that would normally require perfect binding (with the environmental drawback of using glue), and instead give it a unique square spine and stitched finish. UK manufacturer Watkiss Automation developed the PowerSquare and Chris Fowler International became the first user when it beta tested the product and took the world’s two first production models. Eyers and Carthew swear by the finishing device, with the former saying: “If they could do this in litho print and reduce perfect binding that would be so exciting.”
It’s yet another example of how Chris Fowler International is striving to transform its green performance, both through the instantly recognisable headline ways such as ISO and FSC credentials, and through the small incremental initiatives that turn that basic picture into a fully developed tapestry.
Case study – Renaissance Capital
Chris Fowler International prints regular equities and fixed income research reports for investment banking firm Renaissance Capital, based in Russia. The reports can be produced on a daily basis, with anything from 20 to 250 pages in full colour, and are distributed to the bank’s thousands of clients around the world. Occasionally, Chris Fowler’s US print capacity becomes very useful for the bank in meeting tough time constraints.
The bank’s head of editorial and production, Alex Waldman, pays tribute to the printer’s service, saying: “I cannot speak highly enough about Chris Fowler International. They are incredibly professional, and they always go that extra mile. Our reports are the face of our company in a very real sense, and because the reports are time sensitive, it’s very important that things are done to absolutely the highest standard possible.”
Production of Renaissance Capital’s reports has recently been switched onto recycled paper stocks – something that the bank required some persuading about, but which has proved to be a real bonus.
Waldman adds: “We think firstly of our clients’ need for a Rolls-Royce product, but the amazing thing is that Chris Fowler showed me that converting to a smarter, more environmentally-friendly way of printing could also give us a fantastic product.”
• www.chrisfowler.com