Across Europe, measures to contain the pandemic are putting extra pressure on digital printers. Considering the current pandemic, it is quite easy to underestimate another global crisis. The battle against climate change is ongoing but also has a direct impact on the printing industry. Time to get prepared.

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Events and restaurants have shut down, and in most countries most shops are closed, as the COVID-19 crisis has digital printer´s customers firmly in its grip. This situation is particularly hard on print shops that focus on POS applications. However, the climate crisis is still something that this industry needs to focus on.

Compared to 2019, sales in the printing industry as a whole have considerably flattened. This still has a profound impact on their suppliers:

Less demand for consumables
Reduced interest in investing in machinery
Service contracts have been changed or terminated
Many manufacturers and dealers are now in the process of adapting to the situation by focusing mainly on known growth markets as:
 
Textile printing
Soft Signage
Individualized interior design
Personalized gifts and promotional items
Packaging
This strategy should be considered by digital printers if they want to secure their companies’ future.

Today, it is not quite clear how long the pandemic will last or what its long-term effects will be. However, this is no reason to underestimate or forget about the current climate crisis. Brand owners and governments, amongst others, have created measures to stop global warming. Some of these measures will directly affect the business of digital printers.

Governmental Engagement for Climate Protection

At the national level, Germany will introduce CO2 pricing for heating and transport as early as 2021.The new German Climate Protection Act of September 2020 also stipulates that greenhouse gas emissions will be significantly reduced by 2030. There will be an annual review as well as additional measures that will be put in place. By 2050, Germany aims to be carbon neutral on a federal level. This means, that printers’ corporate fleets as well as heating of offices and production spaces will become increasingly more expensive in the coming years as a direct result of climate protection laws.
 
The EU is also pressing for more measures to be introduced in its member states, in order to support the UN SDGs. Since 2015, a main goal is to create a Circular Economy. However, many of today’s wide format printing applications are quite unsuitable for recycling.
 
This applies in particular, (but not exclusively) to trade shows, store designs, packaging and POS applications, as the finished product is effectively a composite, most often only fit for the waste incinerator or landfill.

Big brands are under pressure from all sides to increase their efforts to help mitigate climate change, as legislators often focus on large corporations, with those company´s sheer size establishing their enormous impact on the environment. At the same time, corporations need to always consider investors as well as customers, keeping in mind to always maintain a favourable brand image.

Environmentally conscious buyers expect that their favourite brands will be sustainably responsible in helping to save the planet. Investment-firms have started to establish sustainability as a key necessity for their funding. As a result, today most corporations publish Environmental Reports. In order to create these, they require reliable numbers, for example on the carbon footprint of printed marketing material.

To Kill Two Birds with One Stone

Reduce, reuse, recycle” is a key attitude for a more sustainable use of natural resources. In fact, this slogan could just as well be used as a comprehensive model for the restructure of a digital print shop during COVID-19.
Therefore, using sustainable materials can save money during the entire production process in a digital print shop. The quality of the product will usually not be affected in any way. This, of course, helps both the printers margins as well as the environment.

However, it is necessary for there to be a comprehensive digitization throughout the whole workflow in order to guarantee an effective just-in-time production. This may sound a little awkward for digital printers, since they tend to view themselves as leaders of digitization in the printing industry.

However, the double blow from COVID-19 and climate change makes it more necessary than ever for digital printers to step up.  In order to have a cost and material efficient production that barely effects the environment requires a comprehensive overview and integration of all steps. Starting from when the customer’s orders come in, all the way through warehousing, printing, finishing, quality control, logistics and assembly, returns and then invoicing. This new, wholly-integrated level of digitization in the digital printing industry will go far beyond the production workflows we have been seeing in place for many printers for years.