Sustainability
Sustainability is at the heart of VeronaLibri’s business. Eco-friendly solutions underpin every aspect of the production process – we understand how imperative it is to minimize our impact on the environment and take responsibility for each area of the manufacturing process to arrive at sustainable business solutions.
Critical to this approach is our relationship with the client. Our customers are now vigorously engaged in a drive to choose materials and book production workflows that lower their carbon footprint, making print choices more environmentally friendly.
Key to VeronaLibri’s commitment to sustainable bookmaking include:
- Plant List: both our Heidelberg 106 XL presses are brand new and have been engineered with a keen environmental awareness. Designed to use much less power than earlier generations, machine make-ready times are fast and color management efficient. Our new CTP equipment works at high speed, using less impactful technology.
- Materials: where possible VeronaLibri favors sourcing local papers from the fine paper mills that are near Lake Garda, or even closer – for example the Fedrigoni paper mill is just five minutes from our printing plant, making sourcing and transporting high-quality stock more environmentally friendly, compared to moving paper from Northern Europe.
Most of our clients seek FSC-certified papers, warranting that any wood fiber is sourced from fully sustainable forests. And many customers demand fully recycled stocks. Of course, our target is to keep paper wastage to a minimum – each book’s printing imposition is carefully managed to make the best use of the chosen paper.
We package our books in chlorine-free cardboard boxes. We routinely offer clients a green recyclable shrink-wrap made from fewer plastic components and a biodegradable shrink-wrap alternative, as well. Increasingly our customers ask for packaging solutions that comprise paper, rather than plastics.Clients receive proofs and other materials from us in strong purpose-made boxes that have a long life. We have noticed these boxes are often returned to us throughout the production process, thus cutting down on material wastage. In addition, we have recently moved from PVC/Plastic tape to a paper-based one.
- Energy generation: large solar panels are installed on the press room roof which generate power to run the presses and factory utilities. The panels are specified at 100KW and in 2023 they produced 120 MWh of power. The press room has a purposely lowered ceiling to conserve heat in the winter and to help keep the room cool in the summer. The heat from the presses is captured and pumped back into the press room throughout the winter.
- Inks: Our conventional inks are produced with recyclable resources, using soy-based materials. All the inks are neutralised before disposal. In addition, our new presses employ ink-saving software that minimises the amount of ink transferred to the sheet.
- Plates: Our printing plates are almost fully recycled by specialist waste management companies. The plates don’t need to be rinsed, dramatically reducing our use of water. Our plate setter uses much fewer chemical products than earlier models.
- Recycling: We are careful to recycle where we can and manage waste responsibly. All unused paper is recycled. Paper from packaged printing plates and packaging materials is reused where possible. Waste is sorted carefully – any plastics, glass or wood are collected by licensed waste collection companies for processing and recycling. All inks and varnishes are carefully recycled by specialist companies and, in line with European legislation, precise records are kept.
It makes good business sense for us to promote environmentally friendly print options. Sustainable solutions result in sensible resource management, less cost and happy clients who consider environmental safeguarding a critical issue.