In the 250,000 transactions, customers chose to offset the carbon emissions generated by producing their order by sponsoring a climate protection project.
Since Onlineprinters, which took over Southend on Sea-based Solopress last year, introduced carbon-neutral production in 2013, it has been able to offset 7,900 tons of carbon.
This is equivalent to the carbon emissions a car would produce if it were to travel all roads worldwide: just under 32m km, according to the firm.
“The figure of 250,000 is sensational; it shows our customers want to act sustainably and that Onlineprinters promotes environmental protection,” said chief executive Michael Fries.
Head of press Patrick Piecha said: “When comparing carbon-neutral printing among our various online shops, the UK makes a good mid-level position with a positive trend.
“Last year, 7.1% of British customers ordered carbon-neutral against 6.9% in 2016. Countries such as Italy or Spain have a lower percentage of customers ordering carbon neutrally.”
Customers in Luxembourg, meanwhile, ranked highest with 11.7% followed by Switzerland with 11.6%, said Piecha.
He added Solopress recently notched up certification for ISO 14001 on environmental management for setting and reviewing environmental targets.
Customers can offset carbon when ordering on the online shop by contributing less than 1% of the purchase price to fund climate-protection projects such as reforestation or renewable energy.
In cooperation with ClimatePartner, an ID and a QR code are generated for the ordered product so the order details become transparent for the end customers.
ClimatePartner managing director Moritz Lehmkuhl said: “We provide our IT solutions to nearly 1,000 print shops in Europe.
“Since 2013, this has offset carbon emissions of well over a million orders through climate protection projects.”
The Onlineprinters Group, which operates under the brand name diedruckerei.de in Germany, employs more than 1,400 staff and produced 2.5 billion printed products last year.
These included business cards, letterheads, flyers, catalogues, brochures and large-format advertising in 30 European countries through 18 web shops.
