We are nearly half way through the year and Four Corners is keeping busy.

Ecover, the pan-european based cleaning products manufacturer continues to support Four Corners and our Responsible Print initiative. In May the directors of Four Corners were taken on a tour of their Boulogne-based manufacturing plant – which must be one of the most environmentally friendly factories in Europe. Recent jobs have included the production of nearly a million on product neck-hangers, produced to the exacting standards of Responsible Print and were printed on a specially sheeted size of board, on stock containing 55% recycled content.

The second edition of The Book of Green – the directory for “green” and ethical suppliers has also just been produced, for the first time this was also produced in line with Responsible Print and was printed on Cyclus Offset – a 100% recycled stock.

Those of you that ventured to the UK’s largest print exhibition, IPEX, in May could not have helped notice the amount of space devoted to digital printing. This area of print is growing massively with technical developments occurring on an almost weekly basis! This has been reflected in an increase in the number of digital jobs that Four Corners has produced in recent months. The increased versatility in the  the digital technology can offer has enabled us to produce a wide range of products including short-run, bespoke packaging, paper over board binders, company reports, luggage tags, tenders etc etc.

The newly introduced Colourspace photographic printing side of our business produced numerous prints for several exhibitors at the Brighton Festival including the complete portfolio for the short-listed “Wet Pier” which was a photographic portfolio documenting the demise of Brighton’s infamous West Pier and its subsequent demise through the two fires and subsequent storm damage. All illustrated in photographs take from  actually in the sea by intrepid surfer/photographer Chris Beasley.

Four Corners is regularly requested to donate our services to charities. Unfortunately we do not have the resources to support every request. Every year we select certain charities to support. Previous recipients have included Brighton-based charity -  The Rockinghorse Appeal and Water Aid. This year we have donated the print for Southern Water’s Summer Ball that is benefiting the NSPCC, the RNLI and Cancer Research UK.

This is a common request made by clients and harks back to the time prior to computer to plate (CTP).

In truth many printers never kept the printing plates as storage and quality were an issue. Printers did, however, used to keep the film separations for around two years.

Today the situation is very different.

Films are no longer required to make the plates as this stage in the print process has been completely replaced by computerised/automated plate-making. Modern presses also have automated or semi- automated plate loading on to the press that requires pristine plates to work efficiently.

The result is that printer will now  only keep the digital files for a job and as a result, if and when a reprint is required the printer will run a “fresh” new set of plates which also ensure that the plates are clean and free of any scratches etc.

The cost savings that used to be associated with such “straight reprints” are no longer apparent. However(!) the cost savings are made when the job is first originated as the charges for films have been lost completely. If you compare the cost of printing a job today with that of a similar job, say 10 years ago, it should be a lot cheaper!

“But what about the waste of all the plates?”

I don’t know of a printer that does not recycle their plates – they are collected on a regular basis by metal recyclers who will, generally melt them down and make…. more, new printing plates.

So in answer to the question “Can you keep the plates?” is…… “No!”

January has seen the publishing of the CSR Professional Services Directory 2009. The PUR bound 96pp directory was produced in accordance with the Responsible Print credentials including biodegradeable matt lamination and printing on 9 Lives 55 silk.

The directory itself contains detials of 553  ethically minded organisations listed in 57 categoriesfrom all over the world.

For more information go to ethicalperformance.com

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

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.