With the threat of global warming and CO2 emissions on the rise, environmental concern has become a daily subject with many companies marketing their “green” qualifications.

One industry in particular that has been investing big in environmentally friendly techniques is the printing industry; where many companies are modifying their printing processes in order to work under the “Green Printing” label.

Green Printing is an environmentally friendly printing process that uses natural inks, recycled papers and energy conservation.

Like in many industries, there are lots of companies working or marketing their “green services” saying how environmentally friendly they are, but only those companies with certifications from national and international agencies are allowed to market such labels.

Accreditations from The Programme for Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes (PEFC), the Forest Stewardship Council and The Sustainable Forestry Initiative help to ensure the printing process is environmentally friendly.

One of the most renowned accreditations for the printing industry is the ISO 14001 environmental management standards. This accreditation is an international specification, aimed to establish an organized approach to systematically reduce the impact of the environmental aspects which an organization can control.

But there is more the printing and publishing industries can do to endorse their Green printing services; they can take part on campaigns like the Woodland Trust and become members of the Ride2Work Scheme, these are campaigns based in the UK.

The Woodland Trust is the UK’s leading woodland conservation charity which has an ambitious children’s tree planting project launched in the UK, with plans to help plant 12 million trees over the next five years.

While the Ride2Work is a government initiative to help reduce company’s carbon footprint, also known as the Green Transport Plan, it also aimed to make cycling more attractive and more accessible by taking advantage of some unique tax incentives.

Last week Apple lannounced an update to its laptop line launching the new 15” Mac book pro and a 13” Mac book, plus an entry level Mac book ($1000) in a white plastic case.

The new Mac book pro and Mac book have been redesigned using an innovative laptop body, machined out of a single block of aluminium, this new “unibody construction” process makes for a more solid laptop. The chassis is one piece, made stronger by its lack of connecting corners—and less prone to manufacturing flaws, according to Apple.

This is an application of monocoque designs, which was used in cars as early as the late 30’s in fighter plane construction (the Spitfire is an example of monocoque construction).

The other main difference is the inclusion of a second discrete graphics card in the Mac Book Pro.

The Mac Book features a GeForce 9400M integrated graphics card that apple claims is 5X faster than similar offerings from Intel. The Macbook Pro features that same integrated graphics card, but then adds an additional 256MB or 512MB GeForce 9600M GT for users who need more graphical grunt, so very useful for photographers who want to do heavy Photoshop work on the road.

However, not all Mac users are happy with the dropping of FireWire support from all but the Mac book pro. People doing video editing and audio production are particularly unhappy about this, as both of these applications need the performance that fire wire offers over USB2.0

With continued investment in the latest technology check out our impressive plant list…

Gemini’s fresh look encompasses elements of the environment through natural beauty.

Impressions of colour - naturally is Gemini’s way of life, we make impressions, with the best technology available, in the most environmentally responsible way possible.

The drive behind our brand will always be the partnerships we enjoy with our clients and the changes we have made at Gemini Press will add further value to the service and quality we offer.

Click the coloured tabs at the top of the page and have fun with the different colours, our graphic designers Visual Identity Ltd, thought why stick to one colour when we can print them all.

Staff members at Gemini Press have welcomed the governments initiative of The Green Transport Plan with 10 members opting to ride to work rather than drive.

We are committed to supporting ‘The Green Transport plan’ and embrace a healthy work force.

The Ride2Work government initiative allows staff to save up to 50% off a brand new bike, to find out more visit www.evanscycles.com/ride2work.jsp

Encourage your staff to do the same!

We have a comprehensive range of finishing options and we also offer bio-degradable laminate!

Options available inlcude:
UV Spot Varnish Spot varnish is a high gloss UV varnish applied to selected areas of a printed image to enhance product impact or form part of the graphic design.

Foil Blocking These finishes can provide the ultimate in decorative appeal. They are not limited to gold and silver foils, but extend to an impressive range of pigmented, holographic and security foils. All of these can be combined with embossed images to produce varying tactile effects - any one of which will enhance the printed message and provide shelf appeal for greetings cards, cartons, magazine covers, brochures etc.

Embossing Embossing gives you the opportunity to enhance your print with stunning 3-D effects. Embossing is particularly effective when used in conjunction with our other processes i.e. matt lamination and spot U.V with the spot U.V image embossed out of the lamination or foil blocking and embossing, let your imagination run wild!!!

Encapsulation Encapsulation is a process whereby two pieces of film encase a printed card. The tough transparent film is heat bonded to the substrate and to itself at the edges to form a seal that is both tough and damage resistant.

Textures Textured finishes combine extra tough gloss or matt OPP film lamination and the texture of graining, which together give durability to products such as school book covers, technical pamphlets; travel guides, art prints and menus, and provides for unusual and prestigious packaging on items such as video cassette cases where the customer wants the extra benefit of texture

Gloss OPP Lamination Gloss OPP (oriented polypropylene) lamination provides a wide range of uses across the whole spectrum of printed products. The properties of good gloss and strength and the advantages of low cost make it suitable for all the following applications: Company report and accounts, Brochures, Catalogues, Carrier bags, Greeting cards, Book jacket covers, Magazines, Maps, Labels, Point-of-sale and Displays.

Matt OPP Lamination This Matt finish coupled with its smooth texture offers a very high quality image to brochures and book covers. Matt finishes are also particularly suited to surfaces which need to be easily read such as wall maps, but can be prone to scuffing and should be handled with care.

Alternative finishes available include “Fragrance Burst” & Silver Latex “Scratch off.”

Please contact our sales team for more information on 01273 464884 or use the contact form provided and we will be in touch soon.

Gemini Press supporting ‘The Woodland Trust’ Tree For All campaign with a third donation of £3,584.10 helping children plant over 12 million trees in the UK over the next five years.

Tree For All is a new kind of movement that gives children the chance to understand nature and how to take care of it.

Its about young people taking action today that will reap benefits for their children and grandchildren - a thriving landscape teaming with life.

Its hoped that by getting outdoors and planting trees, children will develop an interest in nature and grow up with a view to protecting it.

The UK is one of the least-wooded countries in Europe. The European average is 44% compared to a total UK cover of 12%, and much of this is in Scotland. Cover in England is only 8%, Northen Ireland 6%, Wales 13% and Scotland 16%.

Trees are crucial to life on our planet, they generate oxygen, store carbon, stabilise the soil, are home to wildlife and are a stunning part of our landscape.

More trees and woods mean homes for wildlife, including threatened species like dormice and red squirrels.

Find out more about Tree For All www.treeforall.org.uk

Total donation to date £10,626.80

The arrival of the new Komori Lithrone S529 allows us to move nearer to our environmental goals of alcohol free printing and reducing paper wastage.

The Lithrone S529 automated capabilities means faster set-up and output times making us very competitive especially in the high quality, short run market.

In June Steve Jobs Announced the Newest version Of Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Snow leopard has no major new features but is a transitional releases concentrating on increasing performance in particular:

• Faster installation times and lower hard drive footprint.
• Support for up to a theoretical 16TB RAM.
• Grand Central: a parallel-programming technology that aims to have the OS take full advantage of multi-core CPUs.
• QuickTime X which will feature optimised support for modern codecs.
• OpenCL (Open Computing Language): allowing developers to code applications to use the GPU for non-graphics purposes.
• Improved Safari performance using SquirrelFish core to improve JavaScript performance by 53%. Although this Safari update will be included with Snow Leopard, it is expected to be available for OS X iPhone, 10.5 Leopard, and 10.4 Tiger.
• ZFS File system with support for storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots
• Power PC Support dropped

For the printing industry this should allow applications like Photoshop to make better use of multi core systems and larger memory configurations, also the ZFS file system has a lot of advantages for professional users.

Gemini Press environmental certification ISO 14001

First published in 1996, ISO14001 is the internationally recognised standard for Environmental Management Systems and is aimed at introducing a continuous improvement process into a company’s drive to reduce its negative impact on the environment caused by energy usage and generation of waste.

The prospect of undertaking ISO 14001 was daunting at first, but it soon became apparent we were doing the right thing - we just needed to document it. With help from Phil Chambers, associate consultant of the BPIF we have implemented an environmental management system that works and what’s more it’s paperless!

For full information about ISO 14001 visit BPIF’s14001 article - Steve Cropper, Managing Director at Gemini said:

“The print industry often has a negative image mainly for the materials used in the printing process. At Gemini, we already have in place a number of procedures to help reduce the impact on the environment such as sourcing paper from sustainable forests and using vegetable based inks. A company’s environmental performance can have a significant impact on its success so to gain the ISO14001 certificate is a great achievement”.

Steve continues

“In today’s competitive market many private companies and public sector institutions will only look at those that comply with the highest environmental standards. For example all material produced for the London Olympics has come from companies that have ISO14001”.With less than 5% of printers nationwide being ISO14001 accredited printers. Gemini Press is now in a very strong position pitching for new business. As well as generating significant cost savings over time, Gemini are also reducing their environmental impact.

Does ISO14001 play a part in your decision making process, when choosing your print provider? ”Please comment on the blog and let us know your views.