Environmental Impact of Print: Analyzing an Industry · Analyzing an Industry Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), as defined by the European Commission, and the increasing demand

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Environmental Impact of Print: Analyzing an Industry Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), as defined by the European Commission, and the increasing demand for sustainable products have encouraged forward-looking

companies to manage the environmental impact of their products and production processes. In the entire production chain of the printing industry sustainability is seen

as a tool for weighting the increase in production efficiency. As such it is crucial and

counts among the most important instruments to achieve cost savings.

By Frank L. Schelfaut, dr. sc. Frank is technical writer and principal of External Resources Management specialized in marketing communication projects for hi-tech companies.

An important role in the trend toward sustainable production methods is played by the carbon footprint (CF) calculation, which quantifies the total amount of greenhouse gases released by a product or system, expressed in kilogram CO2 equivalents.

VITO, an independent Flemish institute for technological research, was commissioned by Agfa with a comprehensive study on the environmental impact of Computer-to-Plate (CtP) systems. A first part of the study involves a CF analysis of Agfa’s most recent CtP systems. Although it is difficult to compare quantitative CF figures published by different suppliers, the conclusions of this CF analysis can be generalized since the Agfa CtP assortment represents a mix of plate imaging technologies used by other manufacturers as well.

The results of the VITO study show that the production of lithographic aluminum is responsible fort at least 80% of the carbon footprint. The processes that take place at the

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plate manufacturer’s site (Agfa) and the pre-press activities in the printing plant account for the remaining 20%. Due to this important contribution of the lithographic aluminum production, which is the same for all plates, the CF difference between the various plates under investigation is rather small but still significant. It appears that the most advanced CtP systems, offering the highest degree of convenience and cost savings for the user, also have the lowest CF contribution at the printing plant, which confirms a convergence between ecological and economic benefits as equally observed in other industry sectors.

When end of life recycling of the aluminum is accounted for, the high grade of the scrap from printing plants - along with its short-term availability - provides a substantial CF credit so that climate impact of the most advanced CtP systems is only as low as 3.1 – 3.3 kg CO2 equivalents per square meter of a (gauge 275µ) plate.

However, the CF of pre-press in general, and computer-to-plate systems in particular, is only one element of the total environmental footprint of the printing industry quantified by means of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Furthermore, focusing on just CF disregards the importance of other impact categories and might lead to making the wrong choices when defining an improvement track. The underlying study is only part of a total evaluation of the total environmental impact, however serves as a valuable and credible beginning. A similar report on LCA of CtP systems is pending.

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Environmental Impact of Print: Analyzing an Industry. Introduction Not too long ago environmental regulations were generally perceived as a restraint to economic activity. When considered from the wider perspective of sustainable development, however, eco-technology has become a driver for innovation and a differential advantage for forward-looking companies who often take initiatives beyond minimum level compliance. It is no surprise that a 2010 Frost & Sullivan shortlist of technology platforms with the highest growth potential features at least two environment-related topics1 within the top ten. Moreover, the European Commission defines Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as “A concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in the business operations and in their interaction with stakeholders on a voluntary basis”. CSR is thus part of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. It will help to shape the kind of competitiveness model that Europe wants and it will help to create new business opportunities.

Managing the environmental impact of production processes is therefore no longer a constraint but an opportunity, for the suppliers as well as for the users of the resulting products as will be substantiated further down.

Today the widely accepted and most comprehensive way to perform environmental analysis is through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This is an analytical tool, standardized under ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, that provides us with objective data on the environmental impact, directly or indirectly caused by a product or a system over its entire life cycle.

One of the many elements of LCA is the “global warming”. Global warming is determined by means of a Carbon Footprint (CF) calculation that quantifies the total amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere while producing, supplying, using and disposing the product or the system. The results are expressed as CO2 equivalents.

1 Improved energy efficiency of IT and datacenters – currently responsible for 18% of world energy demand – and CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium-Selenide) solar cells.  

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Carbon footprint analysis of Computer-to-Plate (CtP) systems Carbon footprint analysis can be performed on two levels:

• at the level of a product or system, or

• at the level of an organization/region or an activity

In this paper we will focus on the results of a product carbon footprint (PCF) analysis study for Computer-to-Plate (CtP) systems, commissioned by Agfa Graphics and executed by VITO, an independent Flemish institute for technological research.

In trying to relate the results of a CF study it is important to compare equivalents, otherwise the results of the comparison will not be valid. The comparison should be based on the comparable system boundaries and inventories of processes for each study. It is extremely difficult to achieve complete equivalence, however an analysis of how the CF studies have been conducted reduces the risk of unfair comparisons. This is certainly true when comparing the PCF’s of printing plate systems produced by different manufacturers.

The VITO study only involves CtP systems from one supplier (Agfa) but provides us with an interesting mix of existing plate imaging technologies, many of them equally used by other manufacturers.

Ranked in terms of simplifying processing conditions, hence increased user convenience, the VITO study covers the following plates:

• :Thermostar and :Energy Elite: two positive working plates with an IR-sensitive layer.

• :N92V: a negative working photopolymer plate sensitive to UV light emitted from light emitting diodes.

All three are conventionally developed using a chemical developer solution followed by a water rinsing step and gumming.

• :N92VCF is a chemistry-free version of :N92V and uses plate gum to wash out the non-exposed parts of the pre-polymer image layer.

• :Amigo and :Azura TS are the most recent developments in CtP technology, both based on the Thermofuse® technology and sensitive to IR-laser diodes. The former (:Amigo) is cleansed with a water-based chemistry free alkaline solution, only requiring a final water rinsing and gumming step. :AzuraTS features the highest degree of user convenience and ecological performance as the plate gum also acts as a cleansing solution and plate development is strictly reduced to a one-step chemistry free process that requires no water rinsing.

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Aluminum the long-standing base for offset printing plates

Aluminum is the most abundant metal in the earth’s crust and the third most plentiful of all elements. It is fully recyclable without loss of its natural qualities. The recycling process involves melting of aluminum scrap and only requires anywhere between 5 and 8 percent of the energy needed to produce aluminum from the ore. For common purposes (beverage cans, construction, transportation vehicles…) aluminum is almost infinitely recyclable with no loss in quality and reports state that 75% of all aluminum produced since 1888 is still in use today.

Until now manufacturers have been using primary aluminum for the production of high quality printing plates. This is due to the very high quality expectations for the surface condition of the offset printing plate and the fact that used lithographic plates represent high-grade aluminum waste with excellent recycling capabilities.

On a worldwide scale the use of aluminum in various applications has enjoyed spectacular growth rates so that the demand for aluminum continues to be higher than the amount of available scrap and new primary material is needed year after year. This is partly due to the extended life span of the aluminum, used for building and transportation, the scrap of which only becomes available for reuse after 10 to 50 years. Since lithographic aluminum scrap – along with that from the food packaging industry – becomes more rapidly available for recycling, it makes sense to inject new primary aluminum into both these two applications (litho plates and food packaging) and to use their scrap to feed the worldwide demand in other sectors.

A consequence of reusing the high purity lithographic aluminum scrap in other applications is that it often concerns a cascade process of “downcycling” into alloys with lower aluminum content. With this in mind - and just recently - leading CtP manufacturers began to explore closed loop recycling programs for lithographic aluminum. Printing capacities of printing plates (partly) based on recycled material are being evaluated and market acceptance on a widespread base still needs to be proven.

Scope of the PCF analysis The PCF analysis of the CtP systems under consideration covers the total pre-press cycle for imaging and processing a 1 m2 plate; it includes the production, the distribution, the use and the waste treatment of an aluminum printing plate (gauge 275 µm) that is ready for press. The analysis includes the CF impact of the pre-press equipment used to prepare the plate image and the developer chemistry or cleansing solutions. The entire life span of each plate system has been broken down into following stages:

The production of the plate, consisting of

Production of litho aluminum, which includes mining the bauxite and production of aluminum ingots, transport to the rolling mill, rolling into aluminum sheets, associated production waste, transport and all processes upstream of the manufacturing stage, e.g. raw material supply or energy provision.

Manufacture of the printing plate from the litho aluminum to be ready for use by the plate manufacturer, including the preparation of the aluminum base, the production of chemical raw materials for the coating, plate coating, drying and cutting, finishing and packaging. Emissions are taken into account for the production steps.

Production of pre-press chemicals, i.e. production of chemical raw materials, production and packaging of plate chemistry (developer, replenisher, gum) including transport and all processes upstream the manufacturing stage.

Production of equipment, i.e. production of the plate setter, the processor and peripheral equipment, including packaging, transport and all processes upstream the manufacturing stage.

Transport to customers, i.e. transport of the plates, plate chemistry and equipment from the production plant via the central warehouse to the customers.

Plate pre-press activities at customer site, i.e. the use of the plate setter and the processing of the plates ready for mounting on the press.

The subsequent “press life” of the plate is deliberately excluded since at that point the pre-press life cycle of the plate comes to an end. Use of the plate on a printing press is considered as part of the life cycle of printed matter (newspapers, magazines, books,…) and includes power, chemistry, water on the press.

The End-of-Life (EoL) treatment of all CtP system components (used plates, depleted developer chemistry, depleted gum and used pre-press equipment, packaging material) is included in the PCF life cycle inventory.

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Analyzing the carbon footprint: is it that simple? The ultimate goal of studying the CF of a product or process should be to obtain valuable fundamental input in order to:

• evaluate the efficiency and improvement potential of products and/or operational activities for bringing these products to market

• meet requirements imposed by the industry or local legislation

• communicate CF results to all those using the product or process – and this in a transparent way and fully quantified

When properly standardized the quantitative results of the PCF analysis for CtP systems can be added up to CF studies commissioned by a printing company, for either their printed product(s) calculations or for the printing company itself. The resulting CF will then involve both, the imaging and processing of plate in pre-press and its use on press.

At this moment ISO-standards for product CF-analysis (ISO 14067 and ISO 16759) are still under development. In their study VITO applied the LCA-methodology (ISO 14040 and ISO 14044) focusing thereby on the impact category “Climate Change”. This environmental impact category expresses the contribution to climate change in CO2-equivalents and is the basis for the carbon footprint. Forward looking into the upcoming ISO standards for PCF no relevant contradictions have been discovered. ISO 16759 for calculating the carbon footprint of print media products follows a similar methodology to that which VITO has applied.

In accordance with the ISO 14040 and 14044 methodologies, figure 1 gives a general description of the system boundaries for the plate systems under study.

Figure 1: System boundaries for the printing plate systems under study

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But which approach for modeling waste? For the waste modeling in PCF analysis, different approaches are possible of which two extremes can be considered to be the most comprehensive (see figure 2):

The End of Life recycling (EoL) approach is based on the recyclability of the waste product at the end of its life cycle and considers environmental impacts and/or credits resulting from the recycling process.

The Recycled Content approach is based on the recycled content of the raw materials needed to produce the product in the beginning and the respective impacts and credits, but does not account for the recycling of the resulting waste.

Figure 2: Illustration of approaches dealing with recycling

Both approaches have their inherent advantages and limitations.

Plate suppliers who want to use statements or carbon labeling on their products will rather prefer the Recycled Content approach. However the advantage of the End of Life recycling approach is that it emphasizes the importance and the potential of reusing litho aluminum consumer scrap feeding into the continuous over-all life cycle of aluminum. The necessity of this follows from the simple fact that the 47 million tons total worldwide demand of aluminum (in 2008) was still to be met by no less than 37 million tons of primary aluminum and 10 million tons of available scrap2. With the short lifecycle of printing plates and consumer scrap readily available for being fed into the over-all and global demand for aluminum, the EoL approach is the more realistic scenario.

2 source: Metal Packaging Europe

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The End of Life recycling remains a valuable approach if future research efforts should lead to the recycling of litho aluminum consumer scrap into a perfect substitute for primary aluminum in CtP applications, but it fails to emphasis the benefit of using recycled raw materials. A disadvantage which can be employed by using a more complex multi-method apporach3.

Table 1 presents the product carbon footprints of the plate systems studied. The Carbon Footprint for each plate system is calculated according to two approaches, the Recycled Content approach and the End of Life recycling approach.

Total PCF (kg CO2 eq.)

Recycled content approach 100% primary aluminum

End of Life recycling approach

PCF excl. Litho aluminum for production (kg CO2 eq.)

Azura 11,1±2,2 3,1±0,6 2,0±0,4

Amigo 11,1±2,2 3,3±0,7 2,1±0,4

N92VCF 11,7±2,3 3,6±0,7 2,4±0,5

N92V 11,8±2,4 3,8±0,8 2,6±0,5

Energy Elite 11,4±2,3 3,4±0,7 2,2±0,4

Thermostar 12,1±2,4 4,0±0,8 2,9±0,6

Table 1: Summary of the PCF of all plate systems, including and excluding the CF for litho aluminum production

3 Source Prof. G. Hammond & C. Jones – Inventory of Carbon & Energy (ICE) – University of BATH

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Carbon footprint analysis of Computer-to-Plate (CtP) systems Figure 3 compares the total recycled content PCF of all plates divided into the CF for litho aluminum production and the CF of the process phases at the plate manufacturer’s site (Agfa) and the plate customer. It shows that the production of the litho aluminum is responsible for at least 80% of the carbon footprint. This should be no surprise since the process of making aluminum necessarily requires a considerable amount of energy. Due to this important contribution of the litho aluminum production, which is the same for all plates, the total carbon footprint differences between the plates are relatively small.

Figure 3 compares the total recycled content PCF of all plates

The processes that take place at the plate manufacturer’s site and the pre-press activities in the printing plant are responsible for at most 20% of the CtP system’s total carbon footprint. There remains, however, a measurable CF contribution and room for further improvement.

Ruling out the litho aluminum production process, figure 4 compares the CF contribution of all plates and broken down into different life cycle phases.

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Figure 4: Comparison of the PCF of all plates, excluding the litho aluminum production

The surface treatment, the coating and the finishing of the plate at the manufacturer’s site are responsible for the majority of the CF, followed by the transport of the plates and the plate chemistry to the customer. The use in pre-press and EoL treatment of chemicals also contributes significantly to the PCF for all plates.

The PCF of :Azura TS plates is the lowest of all, which is logical since the :Azura plate needs the least electricity during prepress and no developing chemistry or rinsing water is used, and only a small amount of cleanout gum is needed. According to the results in figure 4, the most recent developments in CtP technology, i.e. :Azura TS and :Amigo, combine the lowest PCF contribution at the printing plant with the highest degree of convenience and cost savings for the user, thus confirming the convergence of ecological and economic benefits.

This convergence is also apparent in the data in Table 1 where the PCF’s of all Agfa Graphics' CtP systems are listed, ranging from :Thermostar to the newest Thermofuse® technology based :Azura TS and :Amigo plates. The total carbon footprint of :Amigo and :Azura TS according to the EoL recycling approach (3.3 kg, resp. 3.1 kg CO2-eq.) is compared to the carbon footprint according to the recycled content approach (11.1 kg CO2-eq. for both plates). As discussed earlier, the production of litho aluminum is by far the most important contributor to the total PCF. When the EoL recycling is included, this contribution is largely compensated by the credits due to the plate recycling as illustrated in figures 5 and 6.

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Figure 5: PCF of the :Amigo plate system

Figure 6: PCF of the :Azura plate system

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The complete picture

Although the litho aluminum production together with the activities of the plate supplier (plate production and logistics) account for most of the carbon footprint of CtP systems, there is still a significant contribution of the printer’s pre-press activities to the product carbon footprint. The good news is that by selecting the most advanced CtP technology the printing company not only gets the benefit of user convenience and cost savings but also makes the least CO2 impact through his pre-press operations.

How the carbon impact discussed in this paper fits into the bigger picture of print production is illustrated in figure 7, taken from a recent VITO study, commissioned by Corelio, Febelgra and Agfa Graphics. The graph shows the total environmental profile of 1 m2 of newspaper printed in coldset.

Figure 7: LCA profile of 1 m2 newspaper in coldset - The first bar of the chart (Climate Change) relates directly

to the PCF results discussed above. Other bars represent more LCA impact categories.

The dominant role of paper in the LCA profile of a printed newspaper – and all other print products for that matter – will come as no surprise. Although it is a highly recyclable material, environmentalists have always criticized the paper consumption of the printing industry. That discussion brings us back to the time where electronic distribution (internet) was radically opposed vs. printed distribution and some expected (in the mid 90’s) the paperless society to be just around the corner.

Today, it is clear that print and electronic communication are evolving to a co-existence, i.e. printing is still there and will be for many years to come. The print business is very much alive and evolving. A positive effect of this evolution is that more and more printing companies are becoming aware of their responsibility to create transparency in their

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environmental performance and to disclose the improvement tracks – already realized or ongoing – in the production of print, using up-to-date technologies. The commissioning of comprehensive PCF or LCA studies, the development of ISO 16759, and the proliferation of carbon calculators for print (e.g. http://uk.climatecalc.eu/) is an illustration of this tendency. Thanks to ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards it is possible to relate CF results for CtP systems, as discussed in this paper, to CF studies commissioned by leading printing companies.

It should not be denied that the Graphic Industry, in common with all industries, has an impact on the environment. The real challenge, however, is for all contenders in the Graphics Industry to take their responsibility serious for reducing the environmental impact so that the printing business can continue becoming more and more sustainable.

In a recent article (verdigrisproject.com) Laurel Brunner draws the attention to paper waste resulting from unsold books and magazines and (re)opens the argument in favor of a print media production process that combines traditional offset with digital (e.g. high speed inkjet) technology. In this hybrid print model the offset press continues to serve as the platform for serial print production whereas the digital technology can be used to produce additional copies and/or for the purpose of adding variable content. This Print-on-Demand technology has been around for quite a while and goes hand in hand with a distribute and print paradigm: less radical than the paperless society but more realistic and certainly more environmentally friendly than the print and distribute model. The Verdigris article focuses on the cooperation of HP with Quantis, a sustainability consulting group, to investigate various systems for printing and studying different demand profiles and fulfillment models and shows again how sustainability concerns will spur the development or proliferation of economically viable technologies.

The VITO study commissioned by Agfa Graphics is in fact a similar initiative – this time a leading traditional Graphic Arts Industry supplier taking the initiative to provide tools for quantifying the environmental impact of its products and systems. The results show that the contribution of pre-press to the climate change, and in particular the contribution of the aluminum plates PCF, is modest but relevant and open to improvement. The graph in figure 7, however, also reveals that CF is only one element of the total environmental footprint of the printing industry. Focusing on CF only disregards the importance of other impact categories and might lead to making the wrong choices when defining an improvement track. It is only part of an evaluation of the total environmental impacts, however serves as a valuable and credible beginning.