For in-plants eager to show their commitment to their organizations' sustainability policies, earning chain-of-custody certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has been worth its weight in gold. Sustainability has become a critical strategic initiative, particularly at universities, and becoming FSC certified has helped many in-plants show their support of this goal.
Bill May
Eleven in-plants have just achieved Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) chain-of-custody certification through the new InGreen group certification program for in-plants. Managed by Printers Green Resource LLC, the InGreen (In-plant Graphic Reproduction for the Environment, Ecology and Nature) program allows U.S. in-plants with annual print sales of less than $5 million to get certified for about half the cost of doing so independently. At the same time, InGreen handles many key administrative and compliance requirements, such as documented procedures and training.
With 68 percent of in-plants still providing offset printing (according to a new IPG survey), and shops like University of Alabama, University of Oklahoma, Vanderbilt University, and many others still keeping their presses very busy, it appears that long-run offset printing is a long way from fading away.
University of Alabama's director of Printing Services Bill May has served the Crimison Tide with pride for more than 23 years.
Process color printing is a booming business at the University of Alabama. Printing Services has just added its second four-color press, a 26˝ Sakurai 466SIP two-over-two convertible perfector. It replaced a two-color, 26˝ press. At one time, the 31-employee operation, based in Tuscaloosa, ran its four-color jobs on two-color presses. Then the demand for four-color recruiting materials, newsletters, brochures and alumni publications got so great that the shop invested in a four-color 29˝ Sakurai 474P press, back in June of 2002. “Once we installed that first machine and our quality improved dramatically, it just grew,” explains Bill May, director of Printing Services. “Demand exceeded capacity, and