Carbon Footprint Strategy

Carbon emissions have become the latest focus within an industry already concerned with proving its environmental credentials to a growing number of interested parties and stakeholders, from environmental lobby groups and campaigners, to printers, publishers, designers and end-users. Now that more is being understood about the effect of carbon emissions on climate change, the debate has moved on from simply offsetting carbon emissions, to carbon management and reduction.

The first step is for a company to understand and measure its carbon footprint, and this is done in various ways:

• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to accurately determine the current carbon footprint
• Identification of hot-spots in terms of energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions
• Optimization of energy efficiency and therefore reduction of CO2 emissions and other green house gas (GHG) emissions contributed from production processes
• Identification of solutions to neutralise the CO2 emissions that cannot be eliminated by energy saving measures.

The last step includes carbon offsetting; investment in projects that aim at reducing CO2, such as:

• Renewable Energy: Making use of renewable resources such as wind, hydro or solar energy. Technology harnessing these energies can replace power generation through fossil fuels, leading to reduced emissions.
• Energy Efficiency: Projects such as those promoting the use of energy efficient light bulbs help to save emissions back at the power station.
• Methane Capture: Methane is a potent greenhouse gas – More than 20 times more powerful than CO2. Sources include animal husbandry, landfill sites and coal mines and projects capturing these emissions have clear environmental benefit.
• Forestry: Trees absorb CO2 to produce wood and release oxygen back into the atmosphere. Well-managed, long-term forestry makes a real contribution to local communities and biodiversity.