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Sustainable profits

Green advancements transform print industry
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Scott Gray, vice-president of branding at Metropolitan Fine Printers, invested more than $1 million in a new printer (in background) that resulted in a reduction in their carbon footprint

When Scott Gray, vice-president of branding at Metropolitan Fine Printers (MET), first began to consider greening his company’s operations, the prospect appeared not only daunting, but also financially untenable.

“I’d been waiting for the market to be able to support it, but it just wasn’t financially feasible,” said Gray, who had always felt compelled by personal values to try to ensure his business helped rather than harmed the environment. A few years ago, Gray boldly made the necessary changes.

MET is now one of B.C.’s pioneer green printing companies, and it has since carved out a solid position in the market as not only a high-quality printer but also one that is environmentally friendly.

At the start, Gray set out to assess the company’s waste processes. Since printing itself doesn’t produce as much waste as other businesses, it came as no surprise to him that the bulk of the company’s deepest carbon footprint came from the routine operations that undergird almost every business.

“Our transportation costs were a significant factor,” he said.

Some of MET’s operations, such as binding and stitching, were outsourced to other companies. Transportation between these sub contractors and MET constituted a costly and carbon heavy element of its processes. So MET brought everything in-house.

To accommodate the increase in job duties, the company had to take on some additional personnel. But, said Scott, the costs associated with the change were recovered, for the most part, within a year.

MET also upgraded its equipment. In 2004, the company invested more than $1 million in a new printer that emits UV light to activate the ink it uses. This enables freshly printed sheets to dry in a fraction of the time it takes with vegetable- or oil-based inks, allowing them to be stacked quickly, thus reducing the storage space required.

“Reducing the amount of space we consumed in storage allowed us to more efficiently use the space we had,” Gray said.

In making the changes, Gray had help, using the services of Climate Smart.

“We offer not only user software but also training to help businesses measure their carbon emissions, and then find ways to reduce them,” said Climate Smart president Elizabeth Sheehan.

Also in the mix was a timely advancement in technology. Printers use thick rubber mats called blankets to transfer ink onto paper. These blankets have a limited lifespan and constitute a huge amount of a printer’s waste. UV printing in particular uses a large number of these blankets, for which the costs can quickly skyrocket.

For more than three year, Enviro Image Solutions worked on a way to effectively recycle these mats. George Retsos, the company’s COO, realized the huge impact this could have on industry costs associated with printing blankets. By using a special process, the mats can be resurfaced and reused.

“We have been able to reduce the annual expense of purchasing new mats by as much as 70%,” said Retsos, whose company’s services have been in high demand, routinely filling orders from around the world.

What’s left after the mats have gone through the recycling process is sold to Lafarge, which produces construction materials like concrete and gyprock. The mats act as excellent fuel for their industrial furnaces.

As for MET, said Gray, going green has helped its bottom line. “Looking at the company from the perspective of environmental sustainability helped reveal many cost-saving opportunities.” •