Sustainability pioneer Printer Gateway boldly leads industry into new environmental era
Never mind that last year Printer Gateway (PG) saved enough trees to fill a large city park, or line every hole of an 18-hole golf course, or keep 3,050 houses cooler in the summer, or produce over 2,300,000 lbs. of oxygen. Just as important, PG’s innovative green strategies are still putting its clients in the black—and proving each day that sustainability can, and does, work.
The figures above, though conservative estimates, are staggering.
In 2007, Printer Gateway, a Toronto-based trade printer, saved 9,152 trees, 57,200 printing plates and 21,450 hours of press-related electricity (totaling $123,766.50). The company’s use of printing inks, fountain and cleaning solutions, varnishes and so on, was also drastically reduced.
At first glance, these numbers, independently verified by DePaul University of Chicago, seem almost surreal. But when you delve into the company’s background, and the extraordinary vision of President Brian Armstrong some four years ago when he founded Printer Gateway, you’ll quickly realize that these breakthroughs were really just a natural progression of a sustainability strategy that was brilliant in its simplicity—gang printing!
Last year the company averaged 5 different gang runs (combining up to 131 jobs) per week involving everything from business cards to flyers to larger marketing materials.
For example, let’s say you’re printing 56 individual CMYK jobs (flyers, business cards, postcards, etc.) the traditional way with a run of 500 sheets for each job (56 x 500 sheets = 28,000 sheets). Combining (i.e. gang-running) all 56 onto one press run and one larger sheet (1 x 500 = 500 sheets) will save 27,500 make-readys, which translates into 35.2 pine trees saved, according to PG. You also have to consider the paper that’s trimmed off and ends up in the trash bin if you print odd-sized jobs individually.
Instead of using 224 printing plates (56 x 4), you only use one larger plate (1 x 4) and save 220 plates, not to mention the energy you save from the plate-making process.
The 84 machine hours of electricity (56 x 1.5 hrs. = 84) can be reduced to 1.5 hours (1 x 1.5). It’s clear from this small example how a printer’s costs and impact on the environment can be dramatically reduced.
Needless to say, there are a couple of downsides to gang printing, but they’re minor in the eyes of those that count the most—his clients and their end users.
First, the final colour may not be as exact as the intended colour. With so many jobs running together, overall colour control is reduced. However, the vast majority of clients are satisfied with the ‘pleasing’ colour that results. Companies or agencies that insist on perfect colour matching are accommodated and their jobs are printed separately.
Second, some clients have less flexibility in the time they have to prepare jobs. However, the resulting deadline problems can often be overcome as PG educates clients on the environmental and financial savings of the gang-run process. In the end, says PG, most clients and their customers understand that working to a more flexible deadline schedule is a small sacrifice to make.
A leader in eco-friendly solutions
“The fact is that very few Canadian printing companies are as environmentally conscious as we are while remaining profitable and positively impacting our clients’ bottom line,” says Armstrong. “We’re showing our customers each and every day that being ‘green’ really can put them in the ‘black.’ From day one, we took a pro-active approach about energy conservation and environmental responsibility.”
Of course, another key aspect of PG’s success is its reliance on some of the finest presses on the market—in this case Heidelberg and Komori—and its whopping $400,000 investment in the latest and best pre-press workflow solutions. When you combine this technology with a staff of 28 experienced, hard-working professionals who work hard to maintain close client relationships, you’ve got a winning formula.
The statistics speak for themselves. Today, Printer Gateway averages $10 million in gross yearly sales and about 98% of its work is still gang-run printing. Also, the company has just expanded into a new 45,000-sq.-ft. headquarters, formerly the site of several businesses, in the picturesque district of Long Branch, west of Toronto. You might say that the company is growing like the trees it’s saving. Its other two locations are in Mississauga and Markham.
In a way, Armstrong has passed his success on to his clients—not just via more competitive trade prices, but also in the form of his company’s ‘Environmental Seal of Excellence’, which he’s quite proud of.
“This is really a reminder to our trade partners that the products they’re passing along to their customers have addressed virtually all critical aspects of environmental responsibility. Each and every printed piece reflects our eco-friendly commitment in saving not just trees, but air, soil and water as well,” he says. “The seal also helps our clients to further educate consumers, many of whom now demand these products.”
It took foresight
In the late 1990s, Armstrong was already shaping his vision of corporate sustainability—long before Prime Minister Stephen Harper introduced Canada’s Clean Air Act to the House of Commons in October of 2006. If you’ll recall, Harper’s goal was to move industries from voluntary compliance to strict enforcement to fight air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions—the printing industry was no exception.
On top of that, a few days before, the Forest Product Association of Canada asked the federal government to encourage a future business climate that linked competitiveness to environmental performance. By 2004 when Armstrong founded PG, he was already well ahead of this emerging trend.
But that’s not surprising. In its relatively brief lifetime, PG has been at the forefront of positive change. In 2005, the company became Canada’s first and only 5-over-5 card specialists utilizing MetalFX technology, which made it possible to print up to 104 million metallic colours simply by adding one MetalFX base silver to the CMYK mix. Today that technology is used Canada-wide.
PG a breath of fresh air
Consider this: there are an estimated 7 million trees growing within Toronto’s urban borders. Also consider that strategically placing just 3 broadleaf trees around a house can reduce cooling demands in summer by up to 40%. The appropriate mix of trees can filter out 85% of air pollution in a park and 70% on a street. Finally, an average tree produces nearly 260 lbs. of oxygen in a year.
Environment Canada has defined sustainability as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Given that definition, Armstrong and his company have indeed created a “gateway” to the future—a legacy that will likely be the model for future generations as each year brings more pressure on the printing industry to be environmentally responsible.
Printer Gateway doesn’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk—and that walk is lined more and more with green trees, clean air and fresh water.
For more information, please visit www.printergateway.com.
