BLOG: Ian Crossley, Director of Greenhouse
22 years ago, I set up Greenhouse, an award winning sustainable printing company. Our background was actually in design not printing, but as we struggled to find printers providing eco sustainable print solutions we made the decision to ‘go it alone’.
Over twenty years later, the technology, the paper and customer knowledge has moved on so much, that we’re no longer seen as a niche player but rather a commercial printer of scale, providing an excellent quality printed product that can add to a customers environmental credentials.
There’s a legacy view in the industry that printing with recycled and indeed uncoated papers is too problematic, that it costs too much and that the finished is never as good. Perhaps that was the case even five years ago but not any more.
Machine technology has moved on so much that we can operate much more efficiently with recycled paper and there’s much less room for error. It terms of print performance, recycled and eco sustainable paper, stands toe to toe with non-recycled paper. Though recycled paper can be marginally more expensive, we find efficiencies elsewhere so we’re adding value to the customers at no extra cost. The value proposition for customers is all about demonstrating their own environmental credentials. But more than that, where we’re operating in an increasingly competitive market, we’re not going to win over customers by being the cheapest. For printers to prosper, we all need an added value USP.
Ian Crossley is a Director of Greenhouse, the award winning printing company, with comprehensive in house litho printing, digital and wide format printing facilities, based in Basingstoke, North Hampshire. More information on Greenhouse sustainable print credentials can be found here