Laurel Brunner: Prog Rocks!

In most progressive rock music, movement through its sound doesn’t necessarily happen smoothly or obviously. Often it is made in unexpected and unanticipated ways, which is the way of progress in most situations. Progress happens with little steps. We recently came across a lovely example of how it works in the real world of printing and publishing, in the Life and Ecoedicion office of the regional Ministry of the Environment for Andalucia in Spain. This is a local government office that wants to provide an example of green procurement and services. The office has set up a project to improve publishing and production processes and goods procurement, so that they are more environmentally friendly.

The idea is to produce a reference brand that printers and publishers recognise and support. The administration in Andalucia wants to promote sustainable publications and to provide consumers with complete and consistent environmental impact data. They expect this information to be a factor in purchasing decisions. The Ecoedicion Manual is a guidance document the adminstration has produced for its own publishing and distribution activities, however it is hoped that other publishers and municipalities will also use the manual. A campaign is underway to encourage other companies to join the network and nearly 80 Spanish printers and publishers from all over Spain have signed up so far. A pilot project is underway that includes various regional ministeries who have committed to publishing and printing green publications that will bear the Ecoedition ecolabel.

As part of this project the Life and Ecoedicion Office is developing Product Category Rules (PCR) for printed books. This is ambitious because Product Category Rules are difficult to develop for print media products. As far as we are aware only the Japanese Printers Federation is making a stab at it for the graphic arts. PCRs are important because they provide the basis for determining what should be covered in an environmental impact calculation. The work in Spain is intended to provide the partners in Ecoedicion with a common framework on which to base their calculations.

Having a PCR for printed books makes it possible for publishers to produce consistent Life Cyce Assessments for their products. The Ecoedicion Office’s PCR covers printed books of various types and provides the information to be addressed in an environmental impact calculation. If this work is of interest to you, you can find out more about it at http://www.environdec.com/en/PCR/Detail/?Pcr=7927#.VDJsBudYU7E, where the PCR is available for public comment. We are taking tiny steps but we can be confident that, like progressive rock, they will eventually make sense. Such is the way of progress.

Laurel Brunner

 

Verdigris_logo

Dit blog wordt mogelijk gemaakt dankzij de bijdrage van: Agfa Graphics (www.agfa.com), Digital Dots (http://digitaldots.org), drupa (www.drupa.com), EFI (www.efi.com), Fespa (www.fespa.com), Heidelberg (www.uk.heidelberg.com), Kodak (www.kodak.com/go/sustainability), Mondi (www.mondigroup.com/products), Pragati Offset (www.pragati.com), Ricoh (www.ricoh.com), Shimizu Printing (www.shzpp.co.jp), Splash PR (www.splashpr.co.uk), Unity Publishing (http://unity-publishing.co.uk) and Xeikon (www.xeikon.com).

BlokBoek.com is de Nederlandse media-partner van Verdigris, een non-profit initiatief dat de werkelijke voetprint van druk- en printwerk die drukwerk achterlaat eerlijk in kaart wil brengen en dat bedrijven en organisatie steunt om die voetprint te verlagen.
Meer informatie over Verdigris vindt je via deze link.

Rob van den Braak

Printer’s devil (1964), phototypesetter, offsetprinter, teacher of graphic techniques, salesmanager, productmanager, trade journalist, founder of BlokBoek e-zine (2011). But above all husband, father, friend and lover of life in southern Spain (since 2010).

Logo Pmb C3 2

Kandidaten gezocht

Op zoek naar een inspirerende baan in de printmedia branche, meld je dan aan als kandidaat op printmediabanen.nl

De trainingen voor 2022 staan gereed. Kijk voor het volledige online aanbod van bestaande- en nieuwe trainingen op de website.

Elke week het nieuws van de printindustrie in de mailbox
Inschrijven:

* verplicht invulveld

BLOKBOEK.COM EN PRINTMEDIANIEUWS: HET OPTIMALE DOELGROEP BEREIK