5 Magazine Print Sites Gains Environmental Awards

ISO 14001 accreditation has been awarded to all five sites of the magazine printing division of St Ives plc, St Ives Web.

The accreditation was achieved four months after starting to apply.

St Ives is aiming to reduce its environmental impact and to implement ISO 14001 across the group by the end of this year.

St Ives Web achieved the ISO 9001 quality standard 15 years ago and has since been monitoring supplier performance and its supply chain on a continual basis.

The division has also reduced the energy used in its processes.

The company added that it continues to reduce its VOC emissions (volatile organic compounds) and to improve its carbon management.

During its 2006 - 2007 financial year St Ives said it continued to minimise the environmental impact of its business.

It added that it has reduced waste by nine per cent, reducing water consumption by 3.3 per cent and improving energy efficiency by 0.64 per cent.

St Ives has also signed up to the Carbon Trust's carbon management programme in order to maximise energy efficiency and reduce its carbon footprint.

Mark Geary from St Ives HR team commented: "We believe that this accreditation and the speed of its introduction, is clear demonstration of our conformance and dedication to environmental best practices and our commitment to customers." He added: "Achieving the accreditation in just four months would not have been possible without the full buy-in from each of our sites and commitment from all staff and colleagues.

We were also helped by having existing policies and procedures in place, that exceeded some of the ISO 9001 requirements.

Over the last few years we have invested in technology for its best performance in quality, production, substrate and energy consumption." And he explained: "We are committed to reducing our emissions on an continuing basis and environmental performance is an additional criteria for our suppliers, so we can offer our customers a more environmentally friendly production method.

We now have a dedicated team that keeps us focused on the environment on a monthly basis.

We are working towards FSC and PEFC accreditation, which we will achieve across all the web division's sites this year." Geoff Court, health, safety and environmental adviser at St Ives, said: "We also intended to work towards FSC Chain of Custody certification across all its sites where paper or board are the principle substrates used." He continued: "Specific areas targeted for continuous attention include the adoption of processes to reduce the Group's emissions of volatile organic compounds, noise and dust, minimising and recycling of waste products, recycling of water and securing reductions in energy consumption.

The group has made good progress towards improving its performance in these areas.".

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