China's Green Printing Roadmap: Scope, Certification and 12th Five-Year Targets

The Green Printing Handbook breaks China's green printing rollout into three layers: scope, conditions and goals. Its coverage runs from production equipment, raw and auxiliary materials and manufacturing processes to publications, packaging and decoration and all types of printed matter, spanning the product lifecycle. Standards, testing and certification form the supporting mechanism, while the 12th Five-Year Plan period provides a phased roadmap.

I. Scope of Green Printing Implementation

The rollout covers not only printing equipment and raw and auxiliary materials, but also production processes, publications, packaging and decoration, and other printed products, reaching across the complete production chain.

In equipment terms, green printing applies to machinery used in lithographic, relief, gravure, porous, digital and combination printing processes.

For lithographic printing, the green scope includes processes and products using lithography, whether sheet-fed or web-fed. Typical products include board books, hardcover books, perfect-bound books, gift boxes, paper bags, greeting cards, magazines and newspapers.

II. Conditions for Implementing Green Printing

In China, green printing is still at an early stage. The approach must therefore combine mature practices from developed countries with domestic realities, creating standards, testing methods and supporting measures suited to China's conditions.

The green printing standards system has two parts: technical standards for products and standards for enterprises. It is the foundation of the industry strategy. Once standards are issued, execution becomes critical, so a testing institution network covering the whole industry is needed to monitor compliance. Testing is a key implementation tool, while testing methods provide the evaluation function. To ensure scientific, reasonable and fair results, a certification system is essential. Certification promotes standards and lets companies document and communicate compliance externally. Certification bodies must work from the standards and judge compliance through monitoring results.

In short, standards provide the basis and evaluation framework, certification drives implementation, and testing methods support effective assessment of companies and products. Together they form a scientific and complete system. No part can be omitted, and coordinated design and sound organization are required.

III. Goals of Implementing Green Printing

By advancing a green printing strategy across the printing industry, China aims to basically establish a green printing environmental protection system by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan period. Green printing enterprises should reach 30% of all printing enterprises nationwide; the environmental performance of printed products should reach advanced levels; outdated printing processes, technologies and capacity should be phased out; energy saving and emission reduction should advance; and industrial transformation and upgrading should accelerate.

China's printing sector is broad and its infrastructure remains relatively weak, making green printing a long-term and detailed task. The Announcement on Implementing Green Printing, issued by the General Administration of Press and Publication and the Ministry of Environmental Protection, set out the work arrangements and phased goals for the 12th Five-Year Plan period.

(1) 2011: pilot launch, with standards leading and projects advancing. Localities need to study and promote the national environmental protection standard 'Technical Requirement for Environmental Labeling Products — Printing Part: Lithographic Printing', helping practitioners master the basic requirements of green printing. At the same time, support for current key green printing projects should be increased.

In 2010, the General Administration of Press and Publication launched the 'Digital Printing and Printing Digitalization' project and the 'Green and Environmentally Friendly Printing System Construction' project as breakthrough points for strategic transformation and upgrading in China's printing industry. In October that year, the National Development and Reform Commission allocated 54.2 million yuan to 10 declared projects under these two initiatives.

From 2011 onward, the relevant special program increased support for enterprises' key green printing projects. In line with the 'Application Guidelines for Special Projects of Printing Industry Development', applications and support for key projects in the coming period should be advanced, using major projects to speed up green printing. Regions and enterprises with suitable conditions can run pilots for printed materials frequently handled by children and adolescents, especially primary and secondary school textbooks. Leading printing enterprises are encouraged to apply for green printing certification.

(2) 2012–2013: deepening and expansion. Relevant green printing standards will be formulated and issued in succession, with promotion gradually extending to invoices and vouchers, food and drug packaging and other fields. Green printing demonstration enterprises will be established and supporting policies introduced. Full green printing coverage for primary and secondary school textbooks should be basically achieved, and government procurement of green printing accelerated. A green printing standards, certification and testing system will take shape, with green standards for invoice printing and gravure printing released. Relevant enterprises are encouraged to apply for green printing environmental labeling product certification, helping invoice printing achieve full green coverage as soon as possible. Gravure green printing will also accelerate, starting with puffed food packaging printing, soft drink packaging printing and pharmaceutical packaging printing.

Demonstration, example-setting and benchmark creation will drive the broader effort. Industry is a key pillar of the industrial economy and a front-runner in transformation and upgrading. A set of industry players will be selected as green printing demonstration enterprises, and their highly growth-oriented innovation projects supported, helping replace the old industrial model and offering reference for how the whole sector transforms and upgrades. In building these demonstration enterprises, new technologies and results will be developed and applied, experience accumulated and problems identified, helping green printing spread to more companies. Established green printing demonstration enterprises may receive support and preferential treatment in the national special fund for cultural industry development, industrial policies, management measures, selection and awards, imported equipment and other areas.

Primary and secondary school textbooks, government-procured products, and food and drug packaging are priority areas. For textbooks, green printing should be implemented step by step. Such textbooks are already listed for government procurement; under the Government Procurement Law, they must go through government procurement and, in the future, must be produced by printing enterprises with green certification, ultimately achieving full green printing coverage for primary and secondary school textbooks.

(3) 2014–2015: comprehensive advancement.

This stage should improve green printing standards; green printing should basically cover all printing product categories; green printing enterprises should reach 30% of all printing enterprises nationwide; outdated printing processes, technologies and capacity should be phased out; energy saving and emission reduction in the printing industry should continue; and China's printing industry should accelerate transformation and upgrading.

All green printing standards will be formulated and issued. Printing enterprises will receive more guidance on environmental protection engineering. Building on mature experience in system design and research, energy-saving and emission-reduction technologies for printing enterprises will be systematically integrated, a 'Green Printing Guidebook' compiled, and enterprise environmental protection engineering system designs and application specifications optimized in a targeted way. This will strengthen categorized guidance and help ensure the green printing schedule is met.

With green printing demonstration enterprises in place, green printing will be advanced comprehensively and in an orderly manner. Printing environmental protection engineering system design and demonstration work will promote orderly expansion. By the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan period, the green printing environmental protection system will be basically established.

— This article is reposted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362051.html