03.08.07
Intercolor, a leading specialist manufacturer and supplier of high quality oil based and UV cured inks and varnishes to the printing and packaging industry, has recently won the BSI environmental award for best company in the British SME classification. The award is not industry specific, and all environmentally accredited SME’s in the UK were eligible.
The award was presented to commemorate the recent 10th anniversary of the BS EN ISO 14001 environmental accreditation, which was first launched in 1996 to replace BS7750. In fact Intercolor was also the first ink company in the UK to gain this accreditation after the launch of the new standard.
Managing director Alex Stevenson states that this has great significance for the ink industry in general. He firmly believes that it would be better if all manufacturing companies had to meet this environmental standard, and says that by adopting a genuine environmental stance the company gains a significant operational advantage.
He is quite adamant that Intercolor is more efficient because of the implementation of it’s environmental systems and procedures, and did not gain environmental accreditation just to present a green image.
Meeting environmental targets can be quite far reaching and is not just control of emissions and proper disposal of waste. One of the company’s stated environmental targets was the reduction of electricity bills and as part of this philosophy they recently invested in new high volume machinery, chosen on the basis of efficiency and power consumption. This is said to significantly reduce their electricity usage and offers large ongoing cost savings.
Mr. Stevenson says that achieving environmental accreditation is not that difficult for any company that already has ISO 9000 in place as ISO 14001 can basically be bolted on by updating and adding to procedures.
The award was presented to commemorate the recent 10th anniversary of the BS EN ISO 14001 environmental accreditation, which was first launched in 1996 to replace BS7750. In fact Intercolor was also the first ink company in the UK to gain this accreditation after the launch of the new standard.
Managing director Alex Stevenson states that this has great significance for the ink industry in general. He firmly believes that it would be better if all manufacturing companies had to meet this environmental standard, and says that by adopting a genuine environmental stance the company gains a significant operational advantage.
He is quite adamant that Intercolor is more efficient because of the implementation of it’s environmental systems and procedures, and did not gain environmental accreditation just to present a green image.
Meeting environmental targets can be quite far reaching and is not just control of emissions and proper disposal of waste. One of the company’s stated environmental targets was the reduction of electricity bills and as part of this philosophy they recently invested in new high volume machinery, chosen on the basis of efficiency and power consumption. This is said to significantly reduce their electricity usage and offers large ongoing cost savings.
Mr. Stevenson says that achieving environmental accreditation is not that difficult for any company that already has ISO 9000 in place as ISO 14001 can basically be bolted on by updating and adding to procedures.