Environment friendly and sustainable practice
As a matter of serious ethical consideration Currency has been an active participant in developing meaningful environmentally friendly and sustainable practices within our industry. Our company objective is to promote awareness and acceptance of the need for high level environmental care and sustainable business practices.
This will be achieved by offering and using environmentally friendly products and sound waste management as well as through best management of sustainable human resources and innovation such as carbon neutral goals.
We are currently following the Forest Stewardship Council's guidelines and recommend and use where possible these paper brands.
As a recent member of Greenhouse Challenge Plus we are undertaking CO2 reduction and measuring within our production processes. Our carbon usage is then offset in a number of ways that will reduce Currency's carbon footprint over time.
Extensive waste management practices
- where appropriate waste but still usable paper is sent to local charities, schools or kindergartens
- paper offcuts and waste is sorted and recycled
- glass, aluminium and other metal waste is sorted and recycled
- toner cartridges are returned for reuse by supplier
- timber pallets and plastics are recycled
- biodegradeable plastics are used for mail processing
- film (when still used) is recycled for the silver content or held by client for reuse
- new technology in CTP plates is chemical free or uses lower amounts of chemistry, water, time and power
- other chemicals used on the presses are rebottled and recycled to be reused after distillation
Our environment friendly initiatives include:
- advice on plantation grown stocks with low chlorine inputs as well as recycled stocks
- the use of vegetable based inks
- alternatives to plastic wrappings
- maximizing the use of electronic pdf technology, ftp sites and where appropriate, large scale electronic asset management to gradually reduce the use of paper and chemical based products such as proofs which then need to be delivered by courier or post which in turn requires higher consumption of fuel and other resources
It should be noted that the use of electronic products does need some additional monitoring because both short run digital and overuse of electronic medium and plastics (CDs) can be a greater carbon foot print than sustainable paper products and recyclable consumables.
Carbon neutral goals
As printers, we have to have a reliable and continuous supply of electricity. This leaves a "green printer" with a choice of ways in which to minimise and then offset the use of Victoria's necessary but dirty brown coal generation of electricity.
We, as a Green company, offset our greenhouse-gas emissions by:
- buying green power
- reducing heating and cooling needs using better building insulation and minimal airconditioning
- reducing lighting requirements by increasing natural light available and replacing conventional fluoro tubes with curlies and Led light fittings
- office and studio layouts are open plan and maximise natural light, task lighting is used and office colours are neutral and so do not influence feelings of being too cold or too hot leading to overuse of airconditioning.
- using hot water systems that are extremely efficient and solar powered
- using hybird technology or gas in our company vehicles
As with all our processes, our Quality Assurance program and our sustainable practices program are developed on the basis of continuous improvement - adopting best practice where possible.