Superior’s Biolocity Inks Certified by NAPIM for High Biocontent

Superior Printing Ink has received certification by the National Association of Printing Ink Manufacturers (NAPIM) and their Bioderived Raw Material Content (BRC) Program for Biolocity.Superior’s Biolocity process series has been certified with a BRC Index of 60-70 (depending on the color), which relates to the percentage of bio-based, renewable raw materials contained in the product.

“With the commercial success of certification programs for paper sourced from sustainably managed forests such as SFI and FSC, printers and print buyers are looking for other press consumables that have been recognized for some aspect of enhanced environmental benefit,” said Rich Czarnecki, senior VP and chief technical officer. “When we began this initiative in early 2008, there were several consumable suppliers who elected to develop internal self-certification programs to assess the environmental profile of their products. We took a different approach, deciding that it would be in the best interest of our customers and their print buyers to not develop our own program. A proliferation of individual company-specific programs would lead to industry confusion about program guidelines, and would make it difficult for printers to compare environmental attributes between different products and ink suppliers.”

In February of 2008, NAPIM proposed a new initiative that would take aspects of the American Soybean Association’s “SoySeal” program but expand the scope to include not only soybean oil but all vegetable-derived oils. A month later, Superior Printing Ink collaborated with NAPIM on developing the draft concept for a broader measure of renewable raw material content, which lead to the formation of NAPIM’s Eco Task Force.

“We knew that NAPIM would have to consider a much wider range of bio-derived raw materials for the program to be comprehensive across different product lines and printing processes,” said Czarnecki. “The scope of the BRC Labeling program was expanded to include raw materials derived from other bio-sources, such as rosin and cellulose.”

The NAPIM Bio-derived Renewable Content (BRC) Labeling Program was launched in early 2009. Details of this industry-wide standard program can be found at www.napim.org. Biolocity was one of the first product lines to be registered under the BRC Labeling Program. Biolocity is Superior’s market-leading ultra-low VOC system, which provides outstanding lithographic and runnability properties as well as rapid setting and drying performance under a range of printing conditions.

Biolocity printers can utilize the NAPIM BRC logo on their printed products, websites, and marketing documents to promote their use of Biolocity and the environmental benefits provided by this ink technology.

“Superior Printing Ink took an industry leadership role in working with NAPIM and our industry colleagues to establish the Eco Task Force and the BRC Labeling Program,” said Jim La Rocca, chief operating officer. “We will continue to look for opportunities to bring our customers the information and tools that they need to assess the overall sustainability of their printing operation.”