All the major paper merchants have advised us that an increase of up to 9% will be applied to most papers.

As the majority of papers are imported from Europe, the weakening of Sterling  against the Euro has resulted in the increase.

Printer who are already feeling the squeeze are unlikely to absorb this latest increase.

Since September 2007 the price of paper has risen four times – each time at around 7% with increased fuel costs to blame, so this latest increase will only add to the financial pressures that businesses face.

Environmentally friendly packaging was the offer from the latest catalogue that we produced for The Packaging Store. Printed in four colour process on 100% recycled Cyclus Offset the A5 brochure details all kind of environmentally friendly packing supplies.

For more check out www.packagingstore.co.uk

All the paper merchants have now advised us that their prices are due to increase on September 15th 2008.

The rises are expected to be in the region of 6% to 11%. The merchants are also now charging for each delivery.  reason given include the rising price of fuel and the weak Euro.

August has seen us produce a range of items for the 2008 Adventure Film Festival which is a showcase of action films that is coming to a cinema near you! Items produced included a set of quads and A2 posters, various leaflets and and several 6ft x 4ft standees. For more information check out http://www.adventurefest.co.uk/films.html

Ecover continued their summer marketing drive commissioning us to produce a range of promotional items including miniature booklets, a dispenser, cistern stickers and shelf wobblers. All the items were produced to the strict environmental criteria of Responsible Print including the wobblers that were engineered out of card and biodegradeable lamination, avoid the use of plastic. Next time you are in the supermarket ditch the Fairy Liquid opt for the Ecover option!

http://www.ecover.com/gb/en/

Four Corners has just produced some items for Amy Lame’s Pom Pom International.

Templates and instructions for making pom-poms were produced, printing in four colour process on to 600 micron dutch Unlined Greyboard.

For more information on how the Pom Pom can save the world go to http://www.pompominternational.com/html_pages/about.html

Ecover, the eco-friendly cleaning products manufacturer, has become the first company to use the Responsible Print environmental tracking service for print buyers, set up by Four Corners.

The free service from the print management company traces the environmental impact for any print job and records the entire lifecycle of a printed item – from paper source and print process, to delivery and use.

According to Clare Allman, marketing manager for Ecover, the company decided to use the service because it always takes “a wide variety of ecological criteria into consideration with every decision made”.

The tracking service is being used for a leaflet advising Ecover customers on how to use water wisely and informing them of the company’s links with the charity WaterAid for a project to help provide clean water to villages in rural Ethiopia.

Lena Johansson, director of Four Corners, said that while printer buyers often think they have done enough when they opt for FSC-certified paper and vegetable-based inks, the Responsible Print service looks at the bigger picture and takes the supply chain into account.

“This is particularly relevant to ethical and environmental organisations which wish to promote their products and services without harming the environment, in line with their ethical commitments,” she said.

Print jobs that comply with the Responsible Print criteria are issued with a unique reference number.

Companies can then add the Responsible Print logo to the printed material along with the reference number. This allows consumers to go online, input the number and view the environmental savings resulting from the print buying decision.

Ecover’s WaterAid brochures were printed on 9 Lives 55 Silk, supplied at a special rate by The Paper Company – one of four Corners main suppliers of environmentally friendly printing paper.

Four Corners said it had passed on the saving in the form of a donation to Ecover’s WaterAid project.

The Responsible Print report for the Ecover/Water Aid leaflet can be viewed by going to www.responsibleprint.info and inputting the code GDA570382.

Four Corners produced the marketing collateral for the The Green Wave event, organised by the Business Forum and New Era Associates, will be held in Preston Park from 11am to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday 5/6 July 2008.

There will be showcasing opportunities for all sectors of the community in eight different Zones, which will be themed, and will provide lots of interactive entertainment for the family. For example, the Earth Zone could display wormeries, composting ideas and house a mini eco farm, whilst the Energy Zone will demonstrate products using sustainable energy, ranging from mobile phones to solar powered cars, with the addition of an Energy Play Area or eco circus for children.

The emphasis is on biodiversity, eco friendly, Fairtrade, homemade, locally produced, low carbon footprint, recycled and sustainable!

How much FSC fibre from certified forests do you think paper has to contain to be classed as FSC Mixed Sources?

50%? 70%? More?

You might be surprised to find that the answer is NONE.

According to current rules, paper sold as FSC Mixed Sources must be made up of a minimum of 50% FSC recycled fibre, OR a minimum of 50% FSC virgin fibre from certified forests OR a combination of both as long as it is at least 50% of the total bulk. Therefore, if the recycled content is set at 50% or more, the balance of raw material does not have to carry FSC certification and the paper still qualifies for an FSC Mixed Sources claim. We are not suggesting that this is an attempt to mislead the consumer but it is nevertheless a little confusing and probably not what people generally expect when they see the FSC logo on a printed item.

If you are wondering what constitutes FSC Recycled fibre, we have been told that this could be any post consumer fibre which as been obtained and processed by an FSC certified mill in accordance with the FSC rules. However, it is still unclear whether the recycled part of an FSC Mixed Sources sheet has to be from post consumer origin if the FSC virgin fibre content reaches 50% or more. FSC UK has promised to let us know more details as soon as they have received clarification, but given the complicated nature of the labelling it is hard to see how consumer and readers can make any accurate judgment of the embodied characteristics of a paper carrying the Mixed Sources logo.

A regular request from customers is that “vegetable inks” are used in their print- but what are the benefits and what does it mean? Vegetable oil is only the carrier agent within the ink and constitutes up to a maximum of 50% of the total content of the ink with the balance being things like solvents and pigments, including some of the more unpleasant ingredients which after use become classified as hazardous waste.

True vegetable oil based inks are only suitable for the sheetfed litho process and not currently available for heatset web offset, although some heatset web inks do contain up to 5% vegetable derived oil. Although most printers, in my experience, only use vegetable oil based inks for their everyday 4 colour work, it is also possible to specify “vege” inks for Pantone colours and even metallics.

The environmental gain is purely relevant in sustainability terms – vegetable oil is a renewable source as opposed to a mineral/petroleum based oil which logic tells us will run dry at some point. Whilst it is good practice to favour a sheetfed printer who uses vegetable based inks, unfortunately right now you won’t be able to insist on the same from from a web printer.