Sun Chemical Issues Carbon Footprint Report

In order to support customer efforts to meet their sustainability goals and to do so with data-driven metrics, Sun Chemical released a report called “Carbon Footprint Report 2010” which outlines the results from nine recently completed independent environmental analyses focused on quantifying the carbon footprint of its product lines.

The results outlined in the report provide data that will be used by Sun Chemical to further enhance its processes to have less environmental impact across all product lines and business activities. A key part of Sun Chemical’s sustainability policy is to be data-driven in understanding its impacts on the environment. The completion and reporting of these analyses is a major component of the data-driven aspect of the policy.

The analyses focused on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the product manufacturing and distribution phases, or the “gate-to-customer gate” lifecycle of Sun Chemical’s products.

“Our customers and the marketplace are looking for much more than the standard sustainability rhetoric; they want to know what their suppliers are doing to improve their sustainability performance,” said Michel Vanhems, Sun Chemical’s sustainability leader. “At Sun Chemical, we’re digging deep to get specific numbers to use in evaluating opportunities to reduce our carbon footprint as well as support our customers’ efforts to determine the GHG impact of their products and meet their sustainability goals.”

The analyses covered six of the Sun Chemical product lines, totaling nine products representing approximately 90 percent of the products it offers, including: coldset black inks, coldset color inks, publication gravure inks, nitrocellulose bases, nitrocellulose inks, water-based flexographic inks, water-based flexo dispersions, energy curing inks, and heatset inks. These analyses encompassed nine different manufacturing plants in North America and Europe.

The “gate-to-customer gate” assessments were conducted in accordance with the principles outlined by both the International Organization for Standardization in its ISO 14040 – “Lifecycle assessment-principles and framework” and ISO 14044 – “Lifecycle assessment-requirements and guidelines,” and the PAS2050 from the British Standards Institute – “Specification for the measurement of the embodied GHG emissions in products and services.” The analyses also considered the GHGs governed by the Kyoto Protocol.

The “Carbon Footprint Report 2010” is available to customers and can be requested online at www.sunchemical.com/sustainability.

The analyses were conducted by ENVIRON International Corporation, a highly regarded environmental consultant with whom Sun Chemical has worked for many years. As part of its ongoing effort to assist its customers in identifying the key data inputs for their greenhouse gases lifecycle analysis, Sun Chemical offers, along with its partner, ENVIRON, SunCare® in North America and Sun Chemical Consulting in Europe.

Customers in the U.S. can calculate the initial carbon footprint for their facility operations by visiting www.sunchemical.com/suncare.