The economic downturn may have dented the environmental aspirations of some industry sectors, but print seems surprisingly immune, if the latest PrintWeek environmental survey is anything to go by.

If you compare this year’s responses to last year’s, little has changed in terms of buyers’ criteria and printer perceptions of environmental matters. Indeed the most striking thing to emerge from the 2011 survey is the disparity between what printers said they were going to do over the course of the past 12 months and what they actually did.

When asked last year what environmental standards printers aspired to attain, the number of firms that said they would strive for ISO 14001 in 2010 was 21.9%. However, while the number of respondents holding the ISO accreditation grew accordingly this year, it was only by 10% (from 40% to 50%).

Meanwhile, the number of firms pledging to achieve carbon neutral status in 2010 was set to double from 6.3% to nearly 13%. While the number of carbon-neutral respondents to the 2011 survey grew marginally to 9.2% – and it’s worth pointing out that carbon neutrality still looks important to the printing industry with a further 13.6% pledging to achieve it this year – the rate of increase fell below what was pledged.

There are two possible conclusions that we can draw – that this year’s survey was completed by different printers being the most obvious. But there could also be a more revealing picture emerging of printers having to cut back on their aspirations, or focus their efforts elsewhere, as a result of the trying economic climate. We will only really know the answer when we collate the findings of the 2012 survey, so watch this space.

Click here to download the results of PrintWeek's 2011 Print & The Environment survey