The Best Practice Guide To Environmental Printing - Stralfors

Posted on 20. Oct, 2009 by Ross in Printing

Anyone looking for a best practice guide to environmental printing should look no further than the Cornwall-based factory of Stralfors, according to the judges of the PrintWeek Environmental Company of the Year Award 2009 who awarded the company the title last night.

On top of that Stralfors, unlike many print companies who remain guarded over their efforts to become more energy-efficient, environmentally-conscious and sustainable, happily backs up its green agenda with solid statistics and doesn’t mind sharing its success story with others in the industry.

The judges enthused about the company’s improvement programmes, with one judge commenting: “Stralfors has set itself some real environmental targets and gathered data to show some genuine improvements in performance over the past year”. Stralfors’ also impressed by involving staff at all levels right from their induction, thereby “making it easy for staff to understand how they can contribute and make a difference”. Stralfors’ entry for the PrintWeek Environmental Company of the Year Award 2009 was so impressive it could practically be used as a best practice guide to environmental printing.

The openness behind Stralfors’ success has also reaped dividends for the company, according to environmental and compliance manager Rob Norwell, as well as helping to improve the reputation of the print sector.

We are very happy to tell our story. We’re happy to share what we have learned over the past few years. The more we share with others, the more they share with us. We have a gained a lot by doing this.

Best Practice Tip 1: Tick All The Right Boxes

Before any environmental initiative is given the green light, it is best practice to put it through several tests, says Norwell.

There are several questions we ask: Can the solution be measured? Can it pay back in 24 months and can we verify the results? If the answers are ‘yes’, then we press ahead.

A number of environmental projects are in place and are passing all of Stralfors’ tests. Since 2004, the company has reduced the amount of waste to landfill by 80% and waste in general has been reduced by 36%. “We’ve achieved it by ensuring that the correct waste streams are in place,” says Norwell. “It’s about simple things that people can buy into easily.”

Best Practice Tip 2: All Aboard!

For that to work successfully, Stralfors needs its staff to be onside. With a workforce of 120 at Redruth, it would be understandable if the printing firm put into place strict restrictions as to what staff should and should not do, but it has chosen a more softly-softly guiding approach.

If people don’t put waste in the correct bins then we don’t go breathing down their necks, but we’ve found that people are interested in moving forward on this area. We are not pushing them hard, but giving them an option.

Along with different coloured bins, a traffic light scheme has been put in place on power and light switches to encourage staff to save energy and act as a visual guide. Green indicates that a switch should be turned off when not in use, orange means that it should be checked with a supervisor and red indicates that the switch should never be turned off.

What encourages staff best is that Stralfors makes the results visible. Notice boards show how much progress is being made because, as Norwell points out, for any environmental project to work, communication is vital. “Our staff need to know that they are making a difference,” he says.

Best Practice Tip 3: Resource-Efficient Investment

People power is an important cog, but there are other factors in Stralfors’ success story. In its warehouses, the printing company has implemented an energy-efficient lighting system that saves around £11,000 per year and 60 tonnes of CO2. The instant-strike motion sensors of the Somar Eluma lighting ensure that if no one’s around the lights instantly turn off. Also, a power factor correction unit was fitted to allow Stalfors to use electricity at up to 97% efficiency.

Since 2005, Norwell says that carbon emissions have been reduced by 700 tonnes with a £140,000 saving achieved as a result of the energy efficiency measures, and it doesn’t stop there. The printing company reduced its packaging recovery obligation by 12% in 2007. Cardboard waste has been reduced with the use of crated pallets for some customers, which replace boxes. In addition, shrink wrap has been replaced with ‘powercast’ wrap.

Best Practice Tip 4: Don’t Sacrifice ROI for Trendy Techs

There are several other environmental initiatives up and running; all of them are showing signs that there will be financial payback for the printing company. But not every scheme that Stralfors investigates gets the green light, adds Norwell.

There are things that make a lasting difference. We don’t want something that looks good, but doesn’t add value. We spend a lot of time looking at the facts and figures.

One example is when Stralfors looked into installing wind turbines at the Redruth site. “We looked into the energy and maintenance costs and found that it wouldn’t have been able to pay for itself for 12 years,” recalls Norwell. “It was a definite no-go.”

The results, so far, speak for themselves. Financial savings have been paired with being greener and not one of Stralfors’ initiatives can be tarred with the ‘greenwash’ brush. The wider business community appears to agree; as well as the PrintWeek Environmental Company of the Year Award 2009, other awards have come thick and fast including a BPIF Excellence award in 2008, plus a gong from the Cornwall Sustainability Awards in 2007. Last July, Stralfors was recognised by Business Link South West and picked up a best practice award in resource efficiency.