Ensuring environmental sustainability in the printing industry : eco-printing in Uppsala Nya Tidning ab

Abstract: Environmental sustainability has come a long way and has been defined in many different ways. The focal point of each definition is countering the depletion of natural resources or the restoration of scarce natural resources for future generations. Approaching this issue has not been thesame in every industry. The main focus of this thesis was to find out the contribution of eco-printing towards environmental sustainability in the printing industry with the case of Uppsala Nya Tidning AB. It focused on the following specific objectives.The first was to investigate the role of eco-printing towards environmental sustainability of Uppsala Nya Tidning AB. The second objective was to assess how the environmental sustainability situation of Uppsala Nya Tidning AB. could be enhanced.Data was gathered from both primary and secondary sources in order to fulfil the aim of the research.Secondary sources were from books, journals, and other published articles including the internet. Company documentation and other published reports and archival records were also used. Primary source included interview with some workers at Uppsala Nya Tidning AB. The result of this interview and other company documentation were analysed using tables and also excel charts and graphs.The environmental sustainability of printing companies is measured using different key environmental indicators. These indicators may vary between companies. Performance of the different indicators is noticed to be different over different periods. Sometimes the company does well in some indicators while other times, it performs poorly.Though eco-printing enables companies to strive towards improving their environmental sustainability, these companies should strive to communicate their sustainability situation to stakeholders based on a majority or all of the indicators and not just focus on one or a few indicators on which the environmental performance is high so as to avoid ‘‘green washing’’ of the public.