Tackling climate change is swiftly becoming a leading priority for businesses globally, as pressure intensifies from stakeholders, including regulators, investors, and consumers.
Many decision-makers are expediting the development of environmental sustainability strategies, with a sharp focus on supply chain sustainability – including the environmental footprint of printing. Increasingly, brands are expecting their suppliers to demonstrate efforts to minimise their environmental impact, with some introducing measures to formally monitor their suppliers’ environmental performance.
For packaging converters, showcasing sustainable practices can be challenging, as the production of packaging and labels often demands significant energy and water resources while generating avoidable waste.
In this blog, we’ll explore how modern digital printing technology can help converters reduce the environmental impact of packaging and label production, aligning with their own sustainability goals and those of their brand partners.
The Current Landscape
Flexographic printing, with its traditional ‘forecast demand’ business model, has long been the preferred option for consumer brands producing established, high-volume SKUs. However, evolving consumer demand often drives the development of new, experimental products, including seasonal and promotional releases. In such cases, accurately predicting packaging requirements can be challenging, prompting brands to favour smaller packaging quantities to minimise waste for unproven products.
Meeting the growing demand for shorter print runs can pose difficulties for flexo converters. The process of creating printing plates and lengthy press set-ups is not cost-effective for small volumes and often results in unnecessary waste.
Introducing digital printing capabilities to flexo presses to create a hybrid line, or investing in a standalone digital roll-to-roll press alongside traditional flexo lines, can help converters transition to a more sustainable ‘print-on-demand’ business model for short-run packaging.
A Digital Approach to More Sustainable Printing Practices
Digital printing technology, whether utilised in roll-to-roll presses or as part of a hybrid setup, enables converters to offer an innovative business model to their brand clients. This allows for the efficient production of short-run or variable packaging, reducing costs and waste associated with excess stock.
Minimising avoidable print waste not only saves money for converters and brands but also lessens the environmental impact of managing and recycling surplus printed stock. The energy required for transporting and recycling excess materials contributes to a brand’s overall carbon emissions. Furthermore, de-inking large volumes of surplus stock for recycling often involves substantial water and chemical use, with the added risk of pollution if improperly handled.
Reducing Printing Waste
In the packaging industry, printing waste extends far beyond discarded overstock or obsolete packaging. Digital printing technology provides multiple opportunities for converters to lower the environmental impact of their operations compared to traditional methods. It also offers ways to enhance the sustainability of flexo processes when incorporated into a digital hybrid workflow:
- Print-on-Demand Models: Digital printing’s pricing structure allows converters to produce only the required number of units, enabling a shift to a print-on-demand approach. This eliminates excess stock, conserving energy, reducing ink and substrate use, and minimising the need for transport and recycling of surplus materials.
- Customisation Benefits: Digital printing facilitates waste-reducing packaging customisation, such as late-stage customisation. This process involves adding final details to pre-printed stock at the manufacturer’s site, typically with monochrome printing. Designs are printed in bulk by converters, while elements that change frequently, such as promotional content or variable data, are added just before or during packaging. This approach reduces obsolescence.
- Eliminating Printing Plates: Digital printing eliminates the need for plates, a significant source of waste in analogue processes. Opting for fully or partially digital workflows can significantly reduce lead times and eliminate or minimise plate-related waste. Plates and analogue pre-press waste, such as setup ink and media, can account for over 10% of a brand’s annual costs depending on SKU variation. Removing plates reduces water, ink, and chemical waste, and avoids generating contaminated wastewater from plate cleaning.
- Efficient Use of Consumables: Digital inkjet technology ensures precise ink application, using only the necessary amount to create a label design, unlike analogue processes, where ink on plates often goes to waste during job changes.
- Automation for Efficiency: Onboard automation, such as printhead cleaning and continuous ink circulation, ensures reliable performance while reducing consumable use.
- Energy Efficiency Gains: Modern digital inkjet presses feature advanced drying technology, requiring fewer pinning and curing lamps compared to flexo systems, which often rely on multiple lamps per station. This reduces energy consumption.
By cutting down on consumables and energy use during production, converters can not only lower costs but also contribute to reducing carbon emissions across the supply chain, supporting both environmental and economic objectives.
Sustainable Printing Practices: Automation and AI
Software, AI, and automation are increasingly pivotal in optimising production workflows to support more sustainable printing practices across digital, hybrid, and analogue processes.
- Automated Digital Pre-Press Workflows: In digital printing, automating the pre-press workflow with digital front-end software enables digital proofing, eliminating the need for physical proofs and reducing associated waste. Onboard real-time raster image processing (RIP) capabilities maximise press utilisation, reducing idle energy use and lowering the environmental impact per print.
- Machine Vision Technology: Advanced machine vision systems can enhance both digital and analogue processes by detecting quality issues as they occur. Early intervention prevents defects, minimises rejected prints, and reduces press downtime, contributing to more efficient and sustainable operations.
- Integrated Hardware Automation: Combining pre-press, printing, and finishing into a single automated hybrid label printing process reduces power consumption by streamlining set-up times and enabling faster job changeovers. Continuous processes also minimise material waste by avoiding overruns at each step, delivering environmental and financial benefits.
- AI for Enhanced Print Performance: The use of AI tools to monitor and optimise production patterns is gaining traction. Automated adjustments improve operational efficiency, reduce downtime, and minimise print waste, contributing to a reduced environmental footprint for the entire production process.
By leveraging the efficiencies of automation and AI, converters can achieve significant sustainability gains, improving productivity while supporting environmental objectives.
Digital Printing: Enhancing Sustainability in Your Printing Operation
When applied effectively, digital printing technology can help converters and their brand clients adopt more sustainable production and consumption patterns, aligning with broader sustainability goals. This approach offers substantial opportunities to reduce avoidable waste, particularly through print-on-demand business models and late-stage customisation.
Switching to digital printing or upgrading analogue processes with a digital module for short to medium print runs can lead to significant waste reduction and lower carbon emissions. These changes also enhance efficiency and deliver cost savings, creating a win-win scenario by improving profitability while supporting environmental objectives.
For converters aiming to transition to more sustainable practices, partnering with a digital printing equipment supplier committed to innovation is crucial. Look for suppliers who prioritise optimising energy use, reducing print waste, and continually enhancing the efficiency of printing processes.
