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Ask a printer to explain to you the environmental performance of his presses and, without pause, he will be able to regale you for several hours on the subject. Ask him, however, about how green his building is and he’ll probably just look puzzled. For when it comes to print and the environment, the focus is all on print and not the building in which the process happens.

According to Dominic Burbridge, a senior advisor at the Carbon Trust, this means printers are missing a massive opportunity to cut costs and improve their environmental performance and reputation.

"While building energy costs may be far smaller than a printer’s process energy costs, there are a lot of quick wins on the building side by which printers can generate substantial cost savings," he says.

This oversight is largely a result of a lack of understanding about what can be achieved, coupled with a misconception that these environmental improvements will require major upheaval for the business and hefty capital expenditure. There is also the problem that many print companies lease rather than own their premises.

Avoid the bump
While there are some obvious difficulties, persevering will be well worth the effort, and not just because a high performing eco building is a good sell to prospective clients, but also because, according to energy regulator OFGEM, energy prices are likely to spike by up to 60% by 2016, and the greener your building, the less you will feel the price bump.

An overhaul of your building may then be key to the future viability of running your business and the good news for printers is that for relatively small financial outlays you can have a significant impact on your energy usage and, for the most part, the remedies are pretty simple.

Lighten the load
Take lighting, for example. If it’s bright and sunny outside but you are having to put the lights on inside, the chances are, as Burbridge points out, that your skylights need cleaning. A quick soap down and suddenly you find you have no use for artificial light in summer months. It really can be that simple.

If natural light is not enough, however, look at the lights you are using. Burbridge says that if your lighting systems are more than five years old, you are pretty much guaranteed an 80% energy saving if you update to the latest technology.  
"Some people still have high intensity discharge bulbs using around 250-400W," he reveals. "Nowadays, there are much better solutions such as T5 fluorescent tubes, induction lamps and LEDs. Also, it is now much more affordable to install infrared light control sensors that switch lights on and off as needed automatically."

Heating costs can also be reduced just as simply. By identifying any draft points and filling them with foam filler, the drop in heat loss can be significant. Likewise, using dropdown plastic strips to cover loading bay doors and other access points can have a similarly big impact.

"A lot of these quick wins are about simple maintenance," says Burbridge. "Traditionally, in a downturn when money is tight, maintenance budgets are one of the first things to be cut, but it’s a false economy as you will use more energy."

For printers willing to make a serious investment there are also some heavier-weight options around that can make a big difference; although, as Gary Marshall, group risk manager at Polestar, admits, the cost can be a major disincentive.

"The problem in print, as in other industries, is a lack of money," he says. "It’s difficult to make a case for retrofitting a building to make it more efficient – especially if the building is performing half decently already – when there’s no cash.
"However, if you’re, for example, buying a new press, then you may consider upgrading the area around that press, double glazing or the like, if the cash is there to do that."

Indeed, if there is money available there are real gains to be had by investing. Insulation can deliver some of the biggest benefits, with heat loss vastly reduced, especially in the roof. Building in new windows at the south-facing side of the building and introducing sky lights are also good options for increasing natural daylight so as to decrease artificial lighting.

Technology can also play a part. One of the key problems Marshall encounters in the larger warehouse properties Polestar tends to operate, is distribution of heat. One solution to this could be the use of large high-volume low-speed (HVLS) ceiling fans. A recent survey completed by Liverpool University found that these low-energy fans, which can measure up to 24ft in diameter, can reduce heating bills by 40%.

Garry Stiven, from HVLS fan supplier Megafans, explains: "Hot air rises, so every meter in height can correspond to a temperature increase of 0.8-1.5ºC. So, if you are trying to heat your shopfloor to 16ºC, a 15m-high building could have a temperature of up to 50ºC in the ceiling. That is wasted heat. What the fans do is draw in that heat and propel it downwards to get the air circulating around the building, heating the rest of the room. After an hour you homogenise the heat from floor to ceiling."

This use of technology for environmental betterment is something Buxton Press has adopted wholeheartedly. Within the shell of a building constructed in 1816 as stables, the company has created an entirely new building with some spectacular technological wizardry. From the off Buxton chose high thermal materials, good insulation techniques and the use of high-speed, automatic, pneumatic fast-closing doors, where sensors trigger open the door in one-third of a second and, when the person or vehicle is clear, close it again just as fast, minimising heat loss. Where the real magic happens, though, is with heat.

"We decided to lay out the presses so the auxiliary parts of the machines were on a second floor," explains managing director Kirk Galloway. "This was something KBA had never done before. These units are all big heat generators so we built a system where all the heat created in this upstairs area was blown down into the press hall to circulate the heat. We have complete self-heat generation with no need for radiators. In the summer, the fans are reversed and the building is cooled by jettisoning this heat straight out of the building."

Similarly innovative is the central unit that sucks all waste paper out of the building into a compaction unit. This obviously sucks out hot air with it and so as not to lose this heat, Buxton filters the air and pumps it back in.

"You have got to have high capital expenditure to get involved in serious environmental savings, but the pay back is always very good in our opinion," says Galloway. "Importantly, you have to be open-minded and imaginative about what you are capable of."

Shared benefits
That may be so, but you also have to own your building or the whole process gets very complicated. If you plan to do more than plug some draft points, the investment is generally a large one and if you are leasing there is debate as to who the burden of payment should fall on. It is a problem the Carbon Trust’s Burbridge says is now beginning to be addressed.

"Often, the tenant wants to put in environmental elements but can’t afford to do it, and the landlord doesn’t want to pay for them as he won’t be getting the financial benefit the tenant sees from reduced bills," he explains.

"Increasingly, however, there is advice out there from organisations such as the British Property Federation to aid you with these negotiations and advise as to how you can share the benefits. For example, an energy-efficient building is worth more – if the landlord did the improvements it could charge more rent. That is only just starting to filter through."

Similarly, the green building message has also been slow to trickle through the print industry. But from the simplest task of filling a draft point to the high-end technological solutions of Buxton, giving your building some sort of green makeover is going to become increasingly important as energy bills rise. The environmental benefits and the ability to attract new clients by adding an accreditation relatively new to print to your arsenal (see box) are obviously important, but in a cash-strapped industry it will be the reduction in the monthly energy payments that are the real draw of boosting your building’s environmental performance.

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ACCREDITATION: BREEAM
For those print companies, like Buxton Press, willing to make substantial renovations to their buildings, a BREEAM accreditation is worth looking into. BREEAM is a leading assessment method for environmental buildings that sets best practice for eco building design. It is a badge of honour to take to your customers to demonstrate your green commitments.

Mark Standen, from BREEAM Industrial, explains: "It is difficult to pinpoint specific areas that would make a printer applicable, we are not just about energy, or renewables or carbon - we also look at materials used, transport systems, how the materials have been sourced, the ecology of the site (increasing species as a result of something the company has done), pooling transport for people commuting to work and for potential customers. It is very broad ranging but basically it is all about having good design and best practice."

For more, visit the BREEAM website.