The Climate Calc certificate authenticates the creation of a valid carbon calculation report on the company and the company has a tool with which they are able to calculate their company’s entire carbon footprint as well as calculate it for every single printed product, so they are able to provide the printing house with the highest credibility possible on the market. Therefore, the company is able to analyse its own carbon dioxide emission data and in turn develop plans to decrease its carbon footprint. In addition, Climate Calc makes it possible to calculate the carbon footprint of specific printed product and advise the client on finding a solution that helps reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of the printed product.
Print Best printing house had its initial audit of the Climate Calc certification in spring 2020, the calculation is based on the company’s data from 2019. The audit was carried out by ECOGRAF, the formal partner of Climate Calc and managed by environmental consultant Benoît Moreau (FRA). Ordinarily, after compiling company data, it is followed by an in-person on-site audit, but as Europe was in lockdown last spring, Print Best printing house managers offered a brand new solution for completing the certification process where the validity of the data provided was checked during an exhaustive virtual tour. The next audit will be based on company data from 2020 and will be carried out in the first half of 2021. “Print Best completely switched over to green energy in 2020, which has greatly affected the company’s carbon footprint, and we are very much looking forward to the results of the new audit,” stated Kaarel Ausmees, CSO – Member of the Board at Print Best.
Print Best believes that quality and environmental concerns are extremely important, therefore the company applies a quality management system (standard ISO 9001) and an environmental management system (standard ISO14001), the printing shop is certified with the forest industry supply ch
ain PEFC label as well as the responsible raw material from forests FSC label, which demonstrates that their products are of the highest ecological, social and sustainable economic standards. Furthermore, the print shop has been issued the Nordic Swan Label, which certifies that a labelled product has less negative impact on the environment than an unlabelled product with the same function.
“Sustainable production and environmentally conscious printed products is a self-evident choice for us. However, our clients are mostly located in Scandinavia and Central Europe and many of them require us to have a particular certificate. In turn, we are a company which hopes to find the best tool that allows us to evaluate the environmental impact of our production and printed books in a transparent manner and in real time,” says Kaarel Ausmees on why the company is consistently looking for new solutions regarding environmental concerns while they already possess several green certificates.
Climate Calc is a a calculation tool for CO2 emissions based on the European printing industry standard for carbon calculation. Climate Calc complies with ISO 14064-1 and ISO 16759 standards and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. It includes 13 main parameters in any calculation of CO2 emissions of a printing house or a printed product.
Author: Katre Savi, Chief Executive, Association of Estonian Printing and Packaging Industry
