Greenwash

“We’re green.” We’re environmentally friendly.” We’re FSC certified!”

In the undignified scramble to use environmental issues as a sales tool, a huge amount of misinformation exists – and it’s all aimed at buyers and designers.

There’s no doubt that client pressure has been a significant driving force behind some of the recent environmental progress and printing companies are well aware of the concern of many buyers and designers over environmental issues. A vast majority of printing companies pay at least some attention to these issues but in many cases it amounts to lip service and / or claims that may influence the less knowledgeable buyers and designers. Buyers and designers need to understand the potential environmental impacts of the printing process and place their work appropriately.

There’s an obvious correlation between a company's approach to environmental issues and their environmental awareness and knowledge: gaining an environmental certification, such as ISO 14001, will increase environmental knowledge and eliminate, or at least reduce, the inaccurate claims. EMAS eliminates the Greenwash completely.

The best advice is to dismiss all claims unless backed up by third party, independent evidence – ideally in the form of EMAS…

Eco Management & Audit Scheme

EMAS - the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme, is a voluntary initiative designed to improve companies’ environmental performance. It was initially established by European Regulation 1836/93, although this has been replaced by Council Regulation 1221/2009.

Its aim is to recognise and reward those organisations that go beyond minimum legal compliance and continuously improve their environmental performance. In addition, it is a requirement of the scheme that participating organisations regularly produce a public environmental statement that reports on their environmental performance. It is this voluntary publication of environmental information, whose accuracy and reliability has been independently checked by an environmental verifier, that gives EMAS and those organisations that participate enhanced credibility and recognition.

EMAS is strongly backed by Government and the environmental regulators - organisations who participate are recognised as making strong commitments to the environment and to improving their economic competitiveness.