A new environmental performance index based on the carbon footprint, VOC emissions, and waste in a printing house

Abstract

An environmental performance index (EPI) is introduced to evaluate the activities of a printing house based on three impacts: carbon footprint, volatile organic compound emissions, and waste. As the main causes of environmental degradation are the operation of machinery and usage of materials, we aimed to integrate the three impacts to interpret the EPI or the environmental friendliness of printing houses. Our results demonstrate that environmental awareness increased with improvements to the EPI, following the modification of printing processes and choices of printing materials. Various scenarios, including pre-press, press, and post-press, as well as printing materials, are proposed to predict trends and the possibility of increasing the EPI. Press management and materials and equipment changes have the greatest influence on the improvement of the EPI.