Green Printing Handbook 2012 Released: Yan Xiaohong Writes Preface as China Sets 30% Green Printing Target for the 12th Five-Year Plan

The 2012 edition of the Green Printing Handbook has now been published. It was co-compiled by the Printing and Distribution Management Department of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) and the Science and Technology Standards Department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, with a preface written by Yan Xiaohong, Deputy Director-General of GAPP and Deputy Director of the National Copyright Administration.

The story began in September 2010, when Zhou Shengxian, Minister of Environmental Protection, and Liu Binjie, Director-General of GAPP, jointly signed the Cooperative Agreement on Implementing the Green Printing Strategy — the formal starting point of China's push to put green printing into practice. In the year that followed, GAPP earnestly carried out the national environmental protection strategy and devoted substantial effort to advancing green printing implementation.

Over that single year, pilot green printing of primary and secondary school textbooks delivered notable results; major green printing projects secured state funding; green printing training and publicity reached a wide audience; green printing exhibitions were held successfully; and related research projects were accelerated. The Ministry of Environmental Protection issued the offset green printing standard and actively promoted green printing certification among enterprises. With both departments pulling in the same direction, green printing has become not merely the shared consensus for the entire printing industry during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, but a practice already being rolled out on the ground. In just over a year, China's green printing implementation has taken its first steps and begun to produce results, and it will become an important measure in driving the country's transition from a major printing nation to a strong printing power.

At the same time, a clear-eyed view is essential: China's green printing implementation has only just begun. Measured against an industry of 100,000 enterprises and RMB 770 billion in annual output value, the concepts, technologies, management and especially the investment behind green printing remain a mere drop in the bucket. The task of implementing green printing in China today is still extremely arduous.

On October 8, 2011, GAPP and the Ministry of Environmental Protection jointly issued the Announcement on the Implementation of Green Printing, which set out fairly comprehensive deployment and arrangements for green printing nationwide and brought China's green printing efforts into a new stage. Throughout the 12th Five-Year Plan period, the industry must work conscientiously according to this roadmap and timetable, progressively establish and refine a green printing management system across the sector, give full play to green printing's role, and strive for green printing enterprises to account for more than 30% of all printing enterprises by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan period.

The Sixth Plenary Session of the Seventeenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made important decisions and arrangements for deepening reform of the cultural system and promoting the great development and flourishing of socialist culture. That flourishing places higher demands on China's printing industry while creating greater room for its growth. By accelerating implementation of the green printing strategy — restricting and phasing out outdated technologies and equipment, improving the printing environment, enhancing printing capacity and producing printed products — we can steadily raise the modernization level of China's printing industry, fully meet the various needs of the national economy and the people's daily life, and contribute to the great development and flourishing of socialist culture.

It is hoped that the Green Printing Handbook, co-compiled by the Printing and Distribution Management Department of GAPP and the Science and Technology Standards Department of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, will play its due role in publicizing the concept of green printing, popularizing knowledge about green printing and guiding green printing work. Let green printing go hand in hand with a better life!

Deputy Director-General of the General Administration of Press and Publication

Deputy Director of the National Copyright Administration

November 1, 2011

— This article is reposted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362049.html