When it comes to caring for the environment, some of the most progressive printers in the world are Kodak customers. Kodak instituted the Sonora Plate Green Leaf Award to recognize such printers and share their achievements with the industry. These are the printers that stakeholders should take a note of – simply for the initiatives they have taken to ensure minimum impact on the environment while turning around their businesses.
Printers who recycle paper, use vegetable-based inks or alcoholfree solvents, monitor energy and water usage, and who use Kodak’s environment-friendly printing plate Sonora are identified as likely nominees for the award. These awards are a recognition of their contribution in making the print industry environmentally more responsible and sustainable.
Each year, Kodak selects eight Sonora Plate Green Leaf Award winners from across the globe. The awards for 2016 went to Reynolds and Reynolds (US), Informco (Canada), Groupe Estimprim (France), Royalpack (Poland), UVO Communication (S. Africa), Ohshika Printing (Japan), Kava Printing (China), and NPE Print Communications (Singapore).
As the name of the award suggests, all these printers use Sonora Process Free Plates, although using Sonora plates is only one part of their environmental program. Sonora Plates let printers completely eliminate plate processing, including all related water, chemistry and energy usage, while delivering capabilities comparable to mainstream processed plates.
Kodak has appealed to its customers using Sonora plates, who have also adopted other measures for environmental sustainability, to apply for the Sonora Plate Green Leaf Award in 2017. The company has indicated that it will call for entries sometime in autumn this year.
