Freshly baked! Printing industry ESG white paper released

As one of the four great inventions in ancient my country, printing has a long history and has made outstanding contributions to human civilization. In 2010, Chinese movable type printing was included in the list of intangible cultural heritage in urgent need of protection by UNESCO. It has become a common precious cultural heritage of mankind, and its social value has been recognized around the world.

Image source: China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network·China Intangible Cultural Heritage Digital Museum)

After thousands of years of development, from the inspiration of early seals and stone carvings to the rise of woodblock printing, to the birth and innovation of movable type printing, to the rise and development of modern digital printing, the continuous progress of printing has promoted the spread of culture And popularization has also injected vitality into the development of the entire printing industry.
Today, printing plays an indispensable role in modern society. Its application scenarios cover books, newspapers, magazines, packaging, advertising and other fields, involving all aspects of people's lives.
As countries pay great attention to green economy, carbon neutrality and sustainable development, the printing industry has ushered in unprecedented development opportunities and is also facing many severe challenges.
In this context, the Rongxu ESG Think Tank Research Center conducted an in-depth study of the current situation, challenges and future potential of the printing industry in the field of ESG, comprehensively analyzed the industry's ESG disclosure status, related policies, core issues and development trends, and comprehensively interpreted the printing industry's current situation in the field of ESG. ESG practices are expected to provide valuable reference and guidance for the sustainable development of the industry.

Covers basic information on the printing industry, ESG status quo in the printing industry, and ESG practices in the printing industry.

Chapter 1 Basic information about the printing industry
This chapter deeply dismantles the value chain of the printing industry and clarifies the raw material supply and printing process.
and the impact of core links such as waste recycling on ESG practices in the printing industry; an in-depth interpretation of the scale, competition landscape and industry characteristics of the printing industry; and on this basis, we will analyze printing from the four dimensions of people's livelihood value, environmental protection, international standards, and social responsibility. The ESG potential of the industry was analyzed in detail.

Chapter 2 ESG Current Situation in the Printing Industry
This chapter is based on ESG report disclosure data in the past four years:
Comprehensive analysis of ESG report disclosure in the printing industry;
Interpret the ESG disclosure content of the printing industry from the three dimensions of environmental performance, social responsibility, and corporate governance, and use 7 representative companies such as Flint, Yutong, and Hongxing Printing as examples to illustrate;
Systematically sorted out ESG-related policies in the printing industry from 2003 to the present, and dismantled important policies in detail;
Focusing on environment, society, and governance, 24 printing industry issues were identified, and carbon neutrality and emission reduction strategies, environmentally friendly products and raw materials, circular economy and resource management, digital and intelligent applications, supply chain sustainability, Seven core topics including employee well-being and career development, and efficient governance structures and mechanisms were discussed in depth.

Chapter 3 ESG Practices in the Printing Industry
The Rongxu ESG Think Tank Research Center selects some representative companies from the 'Top 100 Chinese Printing and Packaging Companies in 2024' list and combines them with excellent practical cases from international peers.
From resource recycling and green printing
The six dimensions of technology, green technology innovation and application, digital intelligence technology empowerment, supply chain management and quality management system certification, and corporate governance have evaluated 10 companies including Donnelley, Beijing Hualian Printing, Xinhua Printing, and Dainippon Printing Co., Ltd. An integrated study was conducted on the ESG practices of representative enterprises, presenting the ESG practice paradigm of the printing industry from multiple perspectives and systematically.

Green printing technology strives to cover the entire life cycle of printed products with green environmental protection concepts. The entire process from raw material collection, material processing, product manufacturing, waste recycling, to final disposal should not pollute the environment or cause public nuisance.
In the printing and manufacturing process, the use of a centralized supply system (i.e. centralized water supply, ink supply, air supply, etc.) can not only solve the problems of high pollution emissions, high energy consumption, high heat, high noise, and high maintenance costs, but also through real-time monitoring and automatic adjustment to achieve standardization.
At present, green printing technology in the printing industry is still in the exploratory stage, among which waterless printing technology is one of the three major green printing technologies that can realize the transformation and commercial promotion of technological achievements.
Toray's sustainable waterless printing plate enables simple and intelligent printing, which not only reduces carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds
emissions, and can be widely used in daily necessities and industrial products such as books, labels, metal containers, decorative films, currency/bonds, etc.

Printing companies are also promoting green transformation in multiple dimensions of green operations and corporate governance to achieve the goals of sustainable development and environmental protection.
Taking DNP Group as an example, DNP Group builds an annual environmental management system around the three modules of decarbonization society, recycling society, and harmonious society. Based on the annual environmental management system, it strictly controls and evaluates the impact of various businesses on the environment, and promotes environmentally friendly products and services. , full-process emission control, green ecologicalization of business sites and other measures to promote green corporate governance.

Conclusion
From the value chain transfer process of the printing industry, we can clearly see that the printing industry has the need to promote ESG practices in many aspects and has huge ESG development potential. At the same time, domestic and international printing colleagues have promoted ESG practices in different dimensions based on ESG issues, and have presented a number of ESG practice paradigms with reference value.
We believe that with the advancement of science and technology, the guidance of various policies, changes in consumer consumption patterns and self-innovation of the industry, the printing industry will develop in a smarter and greener direction, allowing thousands of years of cultural heritage to shine , continue to empower human civilization and add color to people’s lives.
Here, special thanks go to the following researchers for their efforts in the 'Print Industry ESG White Paper'.
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