ENVIRONMENT / NEWS 14 email: news@printmonthly.co.uk PrintMonthly printmonthly PrintMonthlyMagazine November / December 2024 - Issue 351 Innovations in typeface, font choice, and page layout have apparently led to significant savings in emissions for publishers, according to a report recently published by the BBC. Typesetting company 2K/Denmark developed its Sustainable Typesetting project with the goal of efficiency in mind. The aim is to subtly change the typeface and more efficiently distribute space between letters and lines in order to, in its own words, “save a significant amount of pages and reduce the size of data files, delivering reduced CO2 emissions and considerable financial savings.” The perceived wisdom within font makers is that legibility of text is primarily determined by “x-height”, the height of the majority of lowercase letters in the Latin alphabet. The x-height of a typeface can therefore be increased without enlarging the whole text, allowing for more letters per line of an equivalent sized typeface. With this in mind, 2K/DENMARK has designed its Sustainable Serif font. This has a larger x-height than many equivalent popular typefaces, such as Garamond. These space savings can have a knock-on effect on the number of pages needed, which can therefore reduce paper usage. Over time these savings are believed to substantially reduce emissions. But for Andreas Stobberup, project lead at 2K/DENMARK, it is important to also focus on the financial savings that these reductions will allow for. “We need to make sustainability cheaper,” he says. “We simply need to show that we do not think it is a compromise. We think it is a better product.” David Miller, president and publisher at non-profit Island Press, reported a 19% reduction in pages and a subsequent 10% cost saving by working with Sustainable Typesetting. For HarperCollins, the typeface innovation originally came from its Christian publishing division, Zondervan Bibles. A typical bible will use thousands of pages, but through experimenting with different fonts and adjusting page layouts, Zondervan was able to significantly reduce the number of sheets used. This reduced the amount of paper required per book and cut printing costs. According to the publisher, subtle changes to typeface, layout, and even ink choice have so far saved 245.6 million pages, equivalent to 5,618 trees. Further savings on emissions have been made by subtly reducing paper thickness. Reacting to the report, Jonathan Tame, managing director of Two Sides, comments: “Sustainable innovation for using fewer materials must be applauded, and no industry can argue with using less. However, the fact remains that paper physical books are a natural, renewable, and sustainable way of reading. “We shouldn’t forget that paper books store carbon, are kept, shared, and when they have finished their life, can easily be recycled and made into new products.” By Jonathan Pert According to HarperCollins the font and layout changes have so far saved 245.6 million pages Global print-on-demand company Prodigi has announced the official launch of Ecocaps, a biodegradable alternative to plastic end caps for cardboard tubes. Developed in-house at Prodigi’s fulfilment centre in the UK, the tube end is made using a unique blend of recycled paper products. The Ecocaps product is designed to address a gap in the market for sustainable packaging solutions, and is fully compostable, biodegradable, and recyclable. By negating the need for traditional plastic end caps in rolled print or poster tubes, it saves two pieces of plastic per tube, roughly equivalent to 10g of plastic. A phased roll-out for packaging on Prodigi rolled prints and posters, which are shipped from the UK, began in February this year with deployment in the US scheduled for November. It has been estimated that the transition has already eliminated more than two million pieces of plastic from the company's supply chain to date. Prodigi develops new sustainable packaging in “global first” Prodigi has announced that Ecocaps are now available for resale to businesses and suppliers Publishers develop new “sustainable” typefaces to save paper By Jonathan Pert Fujifilm Business Innovation has announced the establishment of the Circular Manufacturing Center, which is designed to promote resource circulation in Europe. The new centre, based at the FUJIFILM Manufacturing Europe headquarters in the Netherlands, will collect used toner cartridges from printers and remanufacture them into new toner cartridges, for use within the European region. FUJIFILM Business Innovation plans to expand these remanufacturing processes to other products in the future, including remanufacturing spare parts for production printers. Additionally, FUJIFILM Manufacturing Europe headquarters supplies all of its electricity from a combination of on-site wind power generation and power from a purchased wind power generation company. According to Fujifilm, this use of wind power means that the newly established Circular Manufacturing Center can achieve virtually zero CO2 emissions from the electricity it uses. Fujifilm open manufacturing centre to recycle toner cartridges The site supplies all of its electricity from a combination of on- and off-site wind power
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