At Leafletfrog our policy is to ensure that we provide a print service to our customers that offers sustainable printing by using environmentally friendly working practices and materials.
We believe that it is important that we run our business in a sustainable manner by supplying printing that can support our customers to reach their own environmental targets.
A Green Environment
Being an eco-friendly company means that we have some general rules in place for running our day-to-day business.
- We operate from a modern print facility which is optimised to use low energy.
- We converted all our Factory and Office lighting to energy efficient Philips LED lamps in 2019 which reduced our lighting energy consumption by a whopping 76%!
- We source our electric and gas supply from Engie who aim to ‘make zero carbon happen’ for UK businesses and communities. They are dedicated to developing new sustainable services delivering low-carbon, energy-efficient places and spaces.
- We regularly service our air conditioning units to ensure they run 100% efficiently and they are set on timers to limit their use.
- Most of our company vehicles are full 100% electric.
- We offer a cycle to work scheme to our staff to encourage them to bike to work.
- All our Computers are low energy models and all computers are turned off when not being used.
- We operate a full electric forklift truck for loading & unloading.
We are pro-active in encouraging all parts of our printing process to be as eco-friendly as it can be. As we are only a part of the chain we do our best to use eco-friendly suppliers who also actively ensure their businesses do their part to help the environment.
Sustainable Paper for Printing
All our leaflet printing is recyclable.
All our paper is bought from suppliers who buy their paper from sustainable sources. They are members of schemes which ensures that the paper we buy is from sustainable sources where its manufacturers are helping to maintain the world’s forests and ensures that local communities, plants and animals are supported and protected in their habitats and landscape.
We actively buy our printing paper from suppliers such as Premier Paper who support the Woodland Trust in their Carbon Capture programme which offsets Co2 emissions by planting trees in the UK through the Woodland Trusts Government backed by the Woodland Carbon scheme.
We also offer our customers the option to request using 100% recyclable paper for their marketing materials and are happy to discuss their requirements and work with them on these projects.
Chemical Free Printing Plates
To image your artwork for printing we use only use Sonora Xtra Process Free Printing plates.
They ensure:
- We no longer use harmful processing chemicals.
- We don’t use water on cleaning during and after this process.
- We use less energy to make the plates.
- By using Process Free Printing Plates we save on chemistry, water, processor maintenance and chemicals disposal.
- All our used plates after printing are recycled by a company within half a mile of our factory.
Efficient Litho Printing
We operate a 10 colour litho printing press which ensures that we can print both sides of a sheet of paper in one go. This ensures:
- Quicker printing which means lower energy usage
- We waste less paper on ‘making ready’ for print
- Our printing ink is direct pumped into our printing presses from 200kg barrels. This means that we waste less ink and we don’t buy ink in smaller wasteful packaging.
Vegetable Ink for printing
The ink we use for our litho printing is 100% vegetable oil based. Vegetable oil based inks are derived from soy and other vegetable oils and have a number of benefits to the environment over traditional petroleum based inks. They emit far fewer harmful VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) into the environment. They take less energy to produce than petroleum-based inks and come from sustainable resources. We buy our ink in 200kg barrels which limits the use of small packaging and also means less delivery miles for our suppliers.
Recyclable Packaging
All our boxes are made from sustainably sourced cardboard and all fully recyclable . We do not use plastic shrink wrap or plastic business card boxes for the packing of our items sent by DPD. We also recycle backing paper from our printing plates and use this to pack out our boxes.
Low Emission Delivery
All our box deliveries are done by DPD who we believe are market leaders in ‘green’ deliveries. They currently operate over 700 electric vehicles to support clean, emission free deliveries to our cities. You can read more here https://green.dpd.co.uk/
We also encourage our staff to deliver any parcels which may be on route to their journey to work.
Eco Print Wastage Solutions
Our printing process in our factory operates a custom-built waste paper extraction system. This collects waste cuttings from our guillotine, stitching and folding machines by aluminium pipe and deposits them in a shredder where it is compacted. It is then collected by Veolia for recycling.
To limit paper waste we also:
- Limit the different paper weights we sell online to ensure we can order in bulk, reduce wastage and minimise delivery miles for our suppliers.
- Use 40% less paper to make ready for litho printing.
- Use digital printing for low run print orders as they do not produce paper waste.
- Operate a quality checking system to try and catch any printing issues as early as possible to reduce printing jobs twice.
An Even Greener Future
We are always looking at how we can improve our environmental credentials by reducing our impact on the environment.
We are working with suppliers to see if they can fully commit to regularly supplying 100% recycled paper (there have been several mill closures which limit the amount of stock available) so we can sell it online alongside our sustainable printing.
We will also continue to look for suppliers and only use suppliers who can minimise their impact on the environment.
Your Eco Support
We are always happy to listen to our customers on how we can make our environment a greener place. We believe that we don’t always have the solutions but by listening to our customers and taking on board their views we can work in partnership for a greater good for our planet.
