Just started: Print the Change

Sustainable management and production is increasingly becoming a crucial competitive advantage for printing companies too. The price pressure is increasing, the optimisation options are declining and differentiation is needed. At the same time, environmental legislation is becoming stronger, while customers and consumers are becoming more critical – questioning the origin, ingredients and environmental impact. If you can develop answers for these questions early on, you will be well placed for the future – yet switching to sustainable production takes time and money. So three European printing companies have created a community that can perceptibly accelerate this transition: the Print the Change cooperative.

The founders of the Print the Change cooperative are Ernst Gugler (CEO of the gugler* printing company in Austria and Chairman of the cooperative), Kasper Larsen (CEO of KLS PurePrint in Denmark) and Markus und Renato Vögeli (CEOs of Vögeli AG, Switzerland). The cooperative’s registered office is in Melk, Austria.
The cooperative emerged from the Print the Change Community that gugler* created in 2015 to scale his pioneering achievement Europe-wide. In 2011 the eco-friendly printing company from Lower Austria was the first company in the world to supply Cradle to Cradle certified printed products – and it is still the only one in Germany and Austria. Now the Community has acquired a strong framework in the form of the cooperative.

Cradle to Cradle is a principle underlying the circular economy, in which thanks to the nature of a product’s ingredients, it can be returned again to biological or technical cycles when its useful life has expired – putting an end to take-make-waste. This protects resources and prevents waste, because waste become sustenance. This principle is already being applied in many sectors, from furniture or clothing manufacturers to cleaning product producers.

Cradle to Cradle printed products may only be printed with “healthy” substances. All the ingredients used for paper, ink, varnish and glue are ecotoxicity tested all the way to the last subcontractor and replaced if necessary – only what is good for people, animals and nature is allowed to be part of the printed products. This is guaranteed by the Cradle to Cradle certificate. These printed products are 100 percent reusable, as even the recycling residues can be fed back into the biological cycle. This is why Cradle to Cradle is regarded as the highest sustainable printing standard in the world. You can‘t get greener than that!

Information athttp://printhechange.coop