Sustainability to the fore

Micropress becomes Carbon Balanced Printer

Micropress is also looking at adding more solar panels

Micropress Printers has added to its sustainability credentials by becoming a Carbon Balanced Printer via the World Land Trust.

The firm already has a large solar panel installation of 980 solar panels at its 6,500sqm factory in Reydon, Suffolk, along with a biomass boiler.

It has offered Carbon Balanced Paper as an option for customers for some time, and added the Carbon Balanced Printer accreditation last week.

“We’ve identified that sustainability is huge and it’s important to our clients and our clients’ clients,” explained joint managing director Rob Cross.

“We’ve seen more demand for Carbon Balanced Paper, so being a Carbon Balanced Printer means our clients can have carbon balanced print and paper.”

Family-owned Micropress offers litho and digital printing for a range of products including magazines, books, brochures and leaflets and direct mail.

“I think we’re going to really see sustainability ramp up over the next couple of year and we want to be ahead of that, not behind,” Cross added.

“We’re looking at more solar at the moment, and we’re always looking at options to improve sustainability.”

The World Land Trust’s Carbon Balanced programme provides organisations with the means to quantify their emissions and offset any they cannot avoid.  

Cross said the firm, Printweek’s Company of the Year in 2022, had also started looking into the processes required to become a B-Corp.

Micropress is nearing the completion of a major investment and expansion of its digital printing setup, which includes a £1m-plus spend on extending its factory with a further 1,600sqm for the digital operation.

The extension is located between the main factory and the firm’s 1,500sqm paper warehouse.  

With the new building now complete Cross said the Micropress team was currently refining plans for the optimum layout of the space, again with a sustainability focus to ensure maximum efficiency for functions such as extraction and paper logistics.

Details about its new digital equipment are under wraps for the time being.

Micropress grew sales to more than £27m in 2022, and Cross said the 180-strong employee business was on track to hit its 10% growth target this year.