FESPA to Expand Global Reach of Planet Friendly Printing

FESPA has announced that it will expand the global reach of its long-running Planet Friendly Printing initiatives.

Since 2007 FESPA has published the Planet Friendly Printing Guide which interprets and distils the myriad regulations and certification schemes pertaining to environmental best practice for printers and offers detailed advice on environmental management. The Planet Friendly Printing Guide has been updated several times each year since its first publication in 2007 – which gives an indication of how swiftly things have moved within the sphere of sustainability.

To date, the Planet Friendly Printing Guide has only been available to members of FESPA's 37 member associations. The latest version of the guide will remain exclusive to FESPA members; however, in recognition that sustainability is a pressing issue for all printers, FESPA will make an abridged version of the guide available to non-member printers around the world.

In addition to the valuable advice and guidance offered in the Planet Friendly Printing Guide, FESPA will be extending the availability of the insights and advice on pursuing sustainable printing which has been a strong feature of all FESPA's recent content-led events – such as the FESPA Global Summit 2010, the FESPA Planet Friendly Summit 2010 and the FESPA Global Summit 2011. FESPA has explored more than 40 aspects of sustainability in its research over the last five years, and delivered more than 50 presentations in four continents on the topic.

Presentations on sustainability from global experts, certified sustainable printers, suppliers to the PSP community, and its customers such as top-ten global creative agency Ogilvy and brand owners such as Unilever, Nike and others are now available to all without charge on www.fespa.com

FESPA is making these resources available to the global print community to promote understanding of the key drivers for adopting sustainable practices, and the routes to ensure our businesses become more planet-friendly. These resources will be complimented not only by the continued offering of insight and advice on sustainability at FESPA's events, and an increased offering of advice and consultation on www.fespa.com via webinars and other online resources.

FESPA Digital 2012 will see a comprehensive Planet Friendly Printing program on offer to PSPs– featuring:

• Presentations from global experts such as Paul Machin;
• Case studies from printers who are enjoying improved business results due to adopting sustainable practices such as Simon Pless of Erler&Pless;
• Workshops on pursuing certification under schemes such as ISO 14001 and EMAS, led by accredited assessors; and
• Consultation in the FESPA Planet Friendly Printing Clinic.

All these resources are available to printer's free-of-charge at FESPA Digital 2012 in Barcelona from February 21-24, 2012. Look out for the dates of Planet Friendly Printing webinars on FESPA.com soon, as well as the 'ask the expert' facility.

Planet Friendly Printing is another facet of FESPA's reinvestment programme, which has already seen more than three million Euros reinvested in various initiatives to support printers over the last seven years, explains FESPA Head of Events& New Media Duncan MacOwan, who is steering the Planet Friendly Printing programme development.

"The development of fresh initiatives under the Planet Friendly Printing banner recognises the ongoing significance of sustainability to our global print community, and its reprioritization by PSPs and their customers as we gradually emerge from global recession."