Forest Stewardship Award For Magazine Printer

Following Southernprint receiving chain of custody certification from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), it will print a publication for a customer committed to minimsing environmental impact.

Egmont Magazines' Play and Learn Thomas and Friends will be the first publication produced on Southernprint's presses after the FSC award.

Egmont is a founding member of PREPS (Publishers database for Responsible Environmental Paper Sourcing) and as one of the leading children's publishers in the UK it said it is committed to reducing the impact printing has on the environment.

The certification means that the Dorset-based Southernprint can guarantee that FSC certified paper used on its presses has come from a forest that is well managed according to strict environmental, social and economic standards.

Egmont publishes a growing number of titles on papers that are either recycled or have been certified by the FSC.

The publisher said that it is conscious of the impact that book, magazine and newspaper printing has on the environment so it uses environmentally friendly, and commercially viable, paper stock and printing methods to ensure minimum environmental damage.

The company's print and paper suppliers all comply with the statutory environmental requirements.

To ensure stringent monitoring Egmont teamed-up with consultants Acona in 2003 to develop the Egmont grading system, which is designed to eliminate papers that contained material of questionable origin from its supply chain.

David Mears, Southernprint's purchasing director, said that an increasing number of customers were moving production of their magazines to paper sourced from forests that meet FSC criteria.

He explained: "We have always prided ourselves on being an environmentally responsible company and this is just the latest example of that." PREPS brings together 10 of the UK's leading publishing houses and encourages them to use the Egmont grading system to access objective information on their selected paper stock, allowing for careful monitoring of their supply chains.

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