Sustainable Printing with Route 1 Print
At Route 1 Print, we take sustainability very seriously. We want you to know that when you choose us to be your print supplier, you can rest assured that we are doing what we can to make our factory environmentally friendly. Whether we’re in the office, or on the production floor, here are some of the sustainable choices we make…
Certified ISO 14001 Standards
We are proud to be an ISO 14001 certified business. That means we operate according to a strict set of internationally recognised standards for environmental business practice. The ISO 14001 covers all sorts of business activity, from air pollution to soil contamination, so we can be sure that we’re doing everything we can to be environmentally friendly.
Being an ISO 14001 certified company also means we get regularly audited to make sure that we continue to be environmentally friendly in the future.
The FSC® Supply Chain
You’ll be pleased to know that we only use wood based materials that are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC). This means that you can trace all our paper and cardboard production back to sustainably managed forests. The FSC are an international NGO dedicated to conserving the world’s forest resources and protecting the rights of workers, communities, and indigenous peoples connected to the forests.
If you like, we can add the FSC logo to your artwork too. If you’re interested in this, please get in touch with your account manager for more details.
FSC Certification for compliant products is available on request.
Waste Management
As you can imagine for a printing company, paper and cardboard are our main forms of waste. Thankfully, we are able to recycle all of this through our factory’s extraction system. Excess paper or cardboard is pulled directly from our machines via a suction extractor and carried straight into our recycling tips.
We also recycle our litho printing plates, our plastic packaging, and our electronic waste (through our WEEE certified waste disposal partner).
By weight, 97% of our material waste is recycled and 82% of our chemical waste is also recycled.
Reducing Overproduction
When we give standardised quantity options, we realise that we are sometimes forcing clients to order more print than they really need. This overproduction can mean a lot of waste for either us or our clients. So, wherever possible, we have introduced the option for custom quantities.
On applicable product ranges, if you cannot see the quantity option you need, you don’t have to order more than necessary. You can enter exactly the right amount – saving you money as well as minimising waste.
Sustainability in the Office
Outside of the factory, there’s still a lot that we do to reduce waste and promote sustainability. All of our office PCs are upgraded to implement automatic shutdowns every night. We have also invested in energy-efficient air conditioning and LED lighting.
Plus, we have installed solar panels on our factory roof. These solar panels generate an average of 6,000kWh per week, leading to a CO2e reduction of 72,739 kg/CO2e per year!
At Route 1 Print we are always looking for ways to improve our carbon footprint, constantly striving to reduce the amount of energy we use, and exploring opportunities to increase the amount of energy we generate.
Energy Usage
Our factory and offices are powered on 100% renewable energy! This is thanks to our energy supply contract with EON where we have opted for renewable sources only.
We closely monitor our energy usage and have several measures in place to meet our energy reduction targets. This includes…
- Purchasing, or upgrading to, energy-efficient equipment
- Making use of automatic power-down features on our machinery
- Utilizing carbon offset programmes
- Utilizing renewable energy sources where possible. (We chose EON to be our energy provider because they use more renewable energy sources than the UK average!)
War on Waste
Throughout our company, we run a constant War on Waste campaign. Our team members are always on the lookout for new opportunities to reduce waste, in all areas of our work. So far, this scheme has led to…
- A 52.77% reduction in waste across our litho stream. (Including sheets, inks, power for the machines, and chemical usage)
- A 45% reduction in waste across our digital stream. (Including sheets, inks, power for the machines, and chemical usage)
- Installing timers on several electrical outputs so that they turn off when not in use.
- A 20% reduction in power usage for UV drying processes.
- Virtualising out internal server infrastructure in order to use less power.
- Programming our air conditioning to turn off overnight when nobody is in the office.
- Reducing overall waste by a third!
Sustainability is a journey. We have enjoyed finding solutions that work for us (like using paper tape on our packaging) and we haven’t been put off when something doesn’t work for us (like paper wrapping on business cards). We know that there is a lot left to achieve but we’re committed to keep working at it.
We’re proud to have received certification from Achilles, the UK’s only accredited GHG (Greenhouse Gas) Certification Scheme that we are Carbon Neutral!
Having partnered with the Achilles Carbon Reduction programme, we used our ISO 14065 Accredited Carbon Reporting auditors and Carbon Emissions calculator tool to build out our Carbon Footprint. This allowed us to source verified Gold Standard Carbon Credits, in turn, offsetting our existing Carbon Footprint, which helped us to achieve our Carbon Neutral status for 2022.
This means that we’re a more sustainable business than ever before! It also means that our customers can ensure their businesses are also more carbon neutral by choosing to use us as their trade printer.
We’re also committed to achieving carbon net zero by 2030!