Green printing with tgm

29 Oct Green printing with tgm

If you’re like us and you are starting to cast your green magnifying glass over more and more products and processes to suss out how environmentally friendly they are, rest assured your printing is in safe hands with tgm.

Our printing credentials are certified Gold in Enviromark, accredited for ‘chain of custody’ through FSC (The Forest Stewardship Council) and we participate in the Enviro-Mark NZ Programme. All of our printing is also centralised which means we can invest in state of the art equipment and keep up with the latest in environmental gains and create great economies of scale by printing a number of jobs at once.

PAPER SUPPLY

We source our paper from mills certified ISO 14001 in environmental management – for us this means:

• The mill supplying uncoated paper is self-sufficient in water and power, with waste CO2 used in the paper whitening process.
• Pulp comes from farmed tree interspersed with other crops, to maintain local biodiversity.
• Our coated paper is produced without the use of elemental chlorine, so has virtually no toxic emissions.
• The pulp comes from certified and audited WMF (Well Managed Forests) plantations.
• These forests absorb carbon monoxide and release oxygen into the atmosphere, helping the environment.

WASTE MANAGEMENT

The printing process creates a lot of waste, for us, wherever possible, we separate our waste, which includes everything from aluminium printing plates through to digital print waste products, and recycle it.

WATER AND ENERGY

Printing traditionally uses a lot of water and power. We’re pleased to report we’ve undertaken great initiatives to reduce water and power consumption. This includes process-less plates that do not require water or chemicals in the developing process. Clever aye?

PROCUREMENT

Purchasing power can be powerful. We look at the environmental policies of suppliers when we make purchasing decisions and look for suppliers with a shared environmental focus.

We also combine multiple orders with shared specifications to save on set up, paper, power and other consumables. This means up to 64 jobs can be run as efficiently as if it were one job.

We also use high-speed inkjet that uses environmentally friendly water-based dye inks.

COMPUTER TO PLATE (CTP)

We are an early (and now advanced) user of CTP systems that eliminates the need for film and its associated chemicals from the prepress process. Trust us, this is a clever change.

VEGETABLE BASED INK

Traditional printing inks are mineral solvent-based, but all inks we use are vegetable-based, contain less than 1% mineral oils, and are made from renewable sources.

THE USE OF ALCOHOL IN PRINTING

Isopropyl alcohol (IPA) is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and a product commonly found in the printing industry. Our printing process uses the minimum amount of IPA and we’re constantly seeking alternatives to further reduce the use of IPA in your printing. Other chemicals and solvents associated with the printing process have also been systematically reduced.

SUSTAINABILITY AND TGM

We’re proud of our printing process, but printing is just one part of tgm’s sustainability action plan. Ask us about our plan and the steps we have in place to reduce our environmental footprint.