Sean Milmo, European Editor03.23.20
The prospects for Europe’s printing ink sector this year is at best a continued slow decline in total sales by value in the face of persistent strong competition from social media and IT communications amid only moderate economic growth.
But it could be far worse because of the potential economic devastation that could be caused by the coronavirus outbreak in China at the turn of the year.
It looks inevitable that it will cause some level of shortages and a rise in prices in raw materials for inks because of China’s position as a supplier of key intermediates and commodity pigments.
Analysts were warning, however, in February that the coronavirus crisis could trigger a sharp downturn in the European economy, as well as globally. As a result, there would be a big drop in demand for inks and other industrial goods.
On the other hand, more optimistic forecasters were expecting that the impact of the disease in Europe would not extend much beyond the first quarter of the year.
Economic Growth in Europe
With this scenario, economic growth this year in Europe would be much in line with predictions made before the coronavirus became an epidemic in China.
These forecasts expected only moderate GDP growth in 2020 in Europe – in line with a slowdown in economic expansion globally.
In its latest economic forecast issued in early February 2020, the European Commission, the European Union’s Brussels-based executive, was predicting a 1.2% growth in GDP this year in the euro area comprising the majority of the 27 EU member states. In the EU as a whole, growth was expected to be 1.4%, a level which the Commission was predicting would be repeated in 2021.
However, variations in the performances of some leading national economies that ran into difficulties last year mainly because of decreases in world trade growth were likely to continue this year. These countries have the largest print markets in the region.
GDP growth in Germany, which has the biggest print and printing inks market in Europe, dropped to 0.6% last year mostly because of a decline in manufactured exports to China as a result of the impact on the Chinese economy of the US-China trade conflict. But the European Commission expects Germany’s growth will rebound to 1.1% in 2020.
France’s GDP growth fell to 1.2% last year compared with 1.7% in 2018. The country’s GDP rise will slip to 1.1% this year, according to the Commission. Italy’s economy expanded by only 0.2% last year after a 0.3% decrease in the last quarter. In 2020 Italy’s GDP growth is expected to pick up only slightly to 0.3%.
The UK is expected by the European Commission to record average annual growth of 1.2% in 2020-21, much the same level as in 2019.
After three and a half years of uncertainty about its future in the EU following a referendum in favor of Brexit in mid-2016, the country finally left the Union on Jan. 31 this year. But its departure will only be fully completed at the end of a transition period on Dec. 31, 2020, to allow for the negotiation of an EU-UK free trade agreement.
Until Dec. 31, EU-UK trade relations will remain the same as previously, with the UK continuing to be part of the EU’s tariff-free single market and customs union. This will ensure that – at least temporarily – the UK’s complex supply chains with mainland Europe in inks and other coatings raw materials will stay intact.
There are doubts about whether a free trade agreement can be negotiated in such a short time. Without a deal, a smooth flow of imported raw materials into one of Europe’s biggest ink sectors could be threatened.
Coronavirus
But of more immediate concern early in 2020 was the threat of major disruption to ink raw material supplies across the whole of Europe because of the spread of coronavirus.
Just how big the disease’s threat to Europe is depends on how long the Chinese economy would take to return to a reasonable level of normality.
Reports from China from mid to late February claimed that plants were being paralyzed by a lack of raw materials and manpower due to restrictions on travel and transport.
A survey by China’s Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) found that millions of businesses would be running out of money within one to two months because of low demand and large inventories. SMEs account for 60% of the Chinese economy and 80% of jobs.
The effects of the economic shutdown in China were also beginning to impact supplies elsewhere in Asia and Europe.
“Listening to our members, it’s clear there are already signs of shortages and raw material price increases based on tightened supply due to the coronavirus,’’ Tom Bowtell, chief executive of British Coatings Federation (BCF), whose members include inks producers, said in mid-February.
“While there are alternative sources of some raw materials, many of the precursors of the raw materials they use start life in China,’’ he continued. “We are still waiting for more information regarding how long it will be before Chinese factories are back to normal output levels.’’
Trade association officials in Europe were reckoning that companies in sectors covering inks, coatings and chemical supplies would have had on average three to six weeks of stocks. “Those reliant on Chinese supply lines will be switching to alternative sources but they will be hoping that these other sources can cope with the extra demand,’’ said Peter Newport, director of UK-based Chemical Business Association (CBA), whose members include inks and coatings producers and distributors supplying the European market.
Some analysts in Europe are predicting that the impact of coronavirus could last well into the second half of the year.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is expecting China’s economy to return to normal in the second quarter of the year. “But we are also looking at more dire scenarios where the spread of the virus continues for longer and more globally, and the growth consequences are more protracted,’’ Kristalina Georgieva, IMF’s managing director, said at a meeting of the G20 group of the world’s leading economies.
The persistent interruptions of supplies of materials from China in recent years have aroused debate among ink, coatings and other companies in Europe about the possible need for reshoring or investment in European production capacity for import substitutes like certain pigments and their intermediates and additives such as photoinitiators and other curing agents.
“That raises the question about whether the competitive cost of Chinese products and their much-improved quality make reshoring worthwhile,’’ said Newport.
Regulatory Pressures on Raw Materials
Some of the upward pressure on raw material costs for inks and coatings in Europe had been easing last year because of upstream softer prices for petrochemical feedstocks due to lower oil prices.
On the other hand, lower raw material costs have been at least partially offset by the rising costs of tougher regulatory restrictions.
The main source of the regulations affecting inks and their ingredients is the EU’s 13-year-old chemicals legislation REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals). After its registration of the safety profiles of approximately 30,000 industrial chemicals was completed in mid-2018, the main requirements of REACH have been the continuous updating of the safety dossiers of each registered substance.
Proposals by the European Commission setting a series of deadlines for the updating of registrations are being opposed by a range of sectors, including inks and coatings companies and their raw material suppliers.
The Commission’s critics claim that the short time-spans created by the deadlines make the updating process too complex and costly. But at least one NGO is trying to push the Commission in the opposite direction by pressing for annual updating of registrations.
The Helsinki-based European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), which is responsible for the implementation of REACH, has also been increasing its follow-up checks on the contents of registration dossiers. These involve in-depth investigations of the long-term environmental and health effects of individual chemicals, which can be another additional cost burden for registrants.
Some can result in ink makers that are REACH registrants, their raw material suppliers and ink users having to conduct tests to obtain additional data. Information is being requested on effects like the development of unborn children, genetic mutations and aquatic toxicity. If tests are necessary, details of these have to be vetted first by the agency.
“We know that European consumers are more worried about impacts of chemicals than ever before,’’ said Bjorn Hansen, ECHA’s executive director. “(We’ve stepped up registration checks) to make sure companies follow the law and ensure the safety of chemicals they sell. This work is crucial to prevent harmful chemicals from entering the EU market and ultimately (to) minimize chemical pollution in Europe.’’
Individual EU countries have also been doing their own evaluations of chemicals under the REACH legislation. These have resulted in chemicals being made subject to risk management plans and being identified as substances of very high concern (SVHC). This could mean they would have to be specifically authorized to stay on the market unless their producers or suppliers could produce evidence to the contrary.
Regulators have also been broadening the scope of their activities to substances that previously were not considered to pose significant risks. These include nanomaterials which the European Commission has defined as particles with one or more external dimensions in the size range of 1-100 nanometers. Under new REACH requirements, details of nanoforms of substances have to be included in annexes of their registration dossiers.
At least four EU countries – France, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden – have introduced registries of nanomaterials in their domestic markets. In the absence of stricter requirements at the EU level, more countries may introduce their own specific regulator.
Sustainability and the Ink Industry
In addition to REACH, regulators have been paying closer attention to sustainability issues. But sustainability standards of products and/or their chemicals have also been becoming a big issue among customers and end-users of inks, especially retail chains and brand owners with packaging.
This is mainly in response to a growing anxiety among consumers about matters like climate change, loss of biodiversity and air and water pollution.
In the frontline of these worries among consumers is packaging, which has been one of the few major print sectors in Europe to be growing in value terms.
Plastics in packaging have been increasingly linked with unacceptable pollution in rivers and oceans. As a result, a growing number of retail chains and brand owners are switching their packaging materials from plastic to carton and board.
A new impetus behind greater sustainability has been the concept of the circular economy based on a system of the three “Rs” – reduce, recycle, reuse.
The European Commission has set a target of a four-fold rise by 2025 in the collection of waste and its processing into new cycles of materials production. By 2030 the EU is aiming for 70% recycling of packaging waste with a mandatory reduction of municipal waste disposal in a landfill to a maximum of 10%.
The circular economy could pose big technological challenges for inks makers and users like packaging producers. Recyclability will be a key downstream requirement among both customers and consumers.
Few inks on the present European market have been developed with the circular economy in mind.
A key feature of recyclability is the idea of reusing materials as much as possible so that they have at least two life cycles. Hence the inks and other components in printed products will be expected to be completely free of potentially hazardous chemicals or those which are restricted by REACH.
In fact, in the growing market for recyclates or secondary materials, buyers want materials not only without dangerous ink chemicals but also without any traces of ink. Even tiny particles of ink can show up as dark specs in recycled products, while during different reuse cycles they will conglomerate with other residues.
In the age of the circular economy, inks with a considerable additional value will be those without impurities and/or can be easily separated from their substrates.
Ink producers are joining or forming partnerships in the development of printed products that will be able to generate high-quality recyclates.
“The only way to prevent plastic packaging from ending up as waste in the ocean is to recycle it in a high-quality manner after use,’’ said Reinhard Schneider, managing owner Werner & Mertz, a German cleaning and care products company, who has formed a joint recyclate development partnership with Siegwerk, a packaging inks producer, and other members of the packaging value chain.
Companies in value-creation chains are starting to collaborate in recycling initiatives because of the need for the recyclability of products like packaging to be determined at the design stage. “It is important that we, as a printing ink manufacturer, are included early in such packaging projects,’’ said Thomas Boucoiran, Siegwerk’s global head for brand owner collaboration.
In a collaboration aimed at improving the recyclability of plastic waste, the company joined forces with APK AG, a German specialist in making high-quality plastic granulate from plastic waste. “Plastic waste is such a complex topic that it cannot be solved by one industry player or one sector of the industry alone,’’ said an APK spokesman.
hubergroup, another leading German ink maker, has a partnership with the international brewery Carlsberg for the production of Cradle to Cradle (C2C) bottle labels for its brands. The ink producer is also planning similar partnerships with a leading German discount retailer and an international furniture company.
It wants to make itself an open-source of information on recycling solutions based on the C2C approach to enable maximum reuse of materials. “We are aware of our social responsibility and see it as our task not only to optimize our own products and processes but also to pass on this knowledge,’’ Heiner Klokkers, hubergroup chairman, told a C2C Congress in Berlin in February 2020.
Together with the pressure to lower costs, sustainability is a major driver behind the development of innovative ink technologies and applications. Green inks have been gaining market share in Europe.
There is more use of bio-plastics, for example, in ink resins because of their low carbon footprints, greater biodegradability and lower emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
In response to the increasing demand for carton and board packaging as an alternative to plastic materials, ink producers are having to develop higher-quality inks specifically for paper substrates. Flint Group introduced last year its HexaCode water-based inks for corrugated board and paper bags. The range offers improvement in areas identified by customers, such as wash up, mechanical resistance and tonal printing, according to Flint Group.
Sometimes the solutions for carton printing have been found through collaborations between ink producers and other companies from different disciplines.
In a joint project with color software company Esko, Sun Chemical provided for PAWI Verpackungen AG, a Swiss specialist in cardboard and paper packaging, a seven-color expanded color gamut (ECG) printing facility. It enables PAWI to offer customers the option of ECG instead of spot color printing for certain jobs. It cut costs and also had environmental benefits, such as energy savings, less ink waste, fewer press wash-ups and reduced transport requirements.
Sun Chemical has also been carrying out tests on its SunPakFSP food packaging offset ink set so that its users can appreciate its eco-friendly benefits.
The tests have shown that the inks, based on renewable biomaterials and which has in recent years in Europe been achieving double-digit annual sales growth, comprise 77% organic carbon with the remainder being petrochemical fossil carbon, mainly contained in its pigments.
“Our emphasis on sustainability will continue to be fundamental to our innovation and product development and is gaining broad support from our customers,” said Felipe Mellado, Sun Chemical’s chief marketing officer.
UV LED has become the main impetus behind the relatively fast growth in print curing, due mostly to its low costs, despite complaints from printers about the high price of its inks, and its suitability for current trends in printing such as short runs. It has also been gaining a reputation for sustainability because of its low energy consumption, particularly through its ability to target UV light at specific areas of the substrate. It could also be used on temperature-sensitive and thin substrates. Being reliant on an electronics-based process, it also has a cleaner image.
Like with recyclability inks, its reputation for eco-friendliness has been achieved with the help of partnerships between ink producers, press manufacturers and UV-LED equipment developers.
Siegwerk, for example, has an agreement for the development and supply of UV LED inks to the European branch of the Japanese press manufacturer Komori, which has a proprietary low-energy UV LED system with carbon dioxide emissions 25% of those from conventional UV curing technologies.
A big drawback of UV LED which is harming its sustainability reputation is that it produces printed surfaces whose inks are difficult to separate from their substrates during recycling. Siegwerk launched an ink last year which it claimed solved the problem by giving UV LED inks deinkability levels comparable to those of conventional oil-based sheetfed offset inks.
Sustainability gives the European printing industry and its suppliers like ink producers a key advantage in its fight to remain at the forefront of modern communications. This is due to an increased perception among European consumers that social media and the rest of the electronic communications sector with its rapidly expanding data storage and processing capacity is consuming increasing amounts of non-renewable energy.
By contrast, the print sector, particularly that part of it reliant on paper, is offsetting its CO2 emissions to a considerable extent through high levels of recycling. The recycling rate of paper in Europe is now 72%.
Also, European consumers are showing a rising preference in some key areas for obtaining information from print rather than online. An increasing proportion of people trust printed more than online information. One recent study showed that 69% of Europeans prefer to read books in print form.
Among advertisers, an important trend is the growing share of their expenditure being switched from online to print.
Over the next few years, there is rising optimism among pro-print campaigners that the long decline in revenues from printed products, particularly in the publications sector, may start to be reversed.
But it could be far worse because of the potential economic devastation that could be caused by the coronavirus outbreak in China at the turn of the year.
It looks inevitable that it will cause some level of shortages and a rise in prices in raw materials for inks because of China’s position as a supplier of key intermediates and commodity pigments.
Analysts were warning, however, in February that the coronavirus crisis could trigger a sharp downturn in the European economy, as well as globally. As a result, there would be a big drop in demand for inks and other industrial goods.
On the other hand, more optimistic forecasters were expecting that the impact of the disease in Europe would not extend much beyond the first quarter of the year.
Economic Growth in Europe
With this scenario, economic growth this year in Europe would be much in line with predictions made before the coronavirus became an epidemic in China.
These forecasts expected only moderate GDP growth in 2020 in Europe – in line with a slowdown in economic expansion globally.
In its latest economic forecast issued in early February 2020, the European Commission, the European Union’s Brussels-based executive, was predicting a 1.2% growth in GDP this year in the euro area comprising the majority of the 27 EU member states. In the EU as a whole, growth was expected to be 1.4%, a level which the Commission was predicting would be repeated in 2021.
However, variations in the performances of some leading national economies that ran into difficulties last year mainly because of decreases in world trade growth were likely to continue this year. These countries have the largest print markets in the region.
GDP growth in Germany, which has the biggest print and printing inks market in Europe, dropped to 0.6% last year mostly because of a decline in manufactured exports to China as a result of the impact on the Chinese economy of the US-China trade conflict. But the European Commission expects Germany’s growth will rebound to 1.1% in 2020.
France’s GDP growth fell to 1.2% last year compared with 1.7% in 2018. The country’s GDP rise will slip to 1.1% this year, according to the Commission. Italy’s economy expanded by only 0.2% last year after a 0.3% decrease in the last quarter. In 2020 Italy’s GDP growth is expected to pick up only slightly to 0.3%.
The UK is expected by the European Commission to record average annual growth of 1.2% in 2020-21, much the same level as in 2019.
After three and a half years of uncertainty about its future in the EU following a referendum in favor of Brexit in mid-2016, the country finally left the Union on Jan. 31 this year. But its departure will only be fully completed at the end of a transition period on Dec. 31, 2020, to allow for the negotiation of an EU-UK free trade agreement.
Until Dec. 31, EU-UK trade relations will remain the same as previously, with the UK continuing to be part of the EU’s tariff-free single market and customs union. This will ensure that – at least temporarily – the UK’s complex supply chains with mainland Europe in inks and other coatings raw materials will stay intact.
There are doubts about whether a free trade agreement can be negotiated in such a short time. Without a deal, a smooth flow of imported raw materials into one of Europe’s biggest ink sectors could be threatened.
Coronavirus
But of more immediate concern early in 2020 was the threat of major disruption to ink raw material supplies across the whole of Europe because of the spread of coronavirus.
Just how big the disease’s threat to Europe is depends on how long the Chinese economy would take to return to a reasonable level of normality.
Reports from China from mid to late February claimed that plants were being paralyzed by a lack of raw materials and manpower due to restrictions on travel and transport.
A survey by China’s Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) found that millions of businesses would be running out of money within one to two months because of low demand and large inventories. SMEs account for 60% of the Chinese economy and 80% of jobs.
The effects of the economic shutdown in China were also beginning to impact supplies elsewhere in Asia and Europe.
“Listening to our members, it’s clear there are already signs of shortages and raw material price increases based on tightened supply due to the coronavirus,’’ Tom Bowtell, chief executive of British Coatings Federation (BCF), whose members include inks producers, said in mid-February.
“While there are alternative sources of some raw materials, many of the precursors of the raw materials they use start life in China,’’ he continued. “We are still waiting for more information regarding how long it will be before Chinese factories are back to normal output levels.’’
Trade association officials in Europe were reckoning that companies in sectors covering inks, coatings and chemical supplies would have had on average three to six weeks of stocks. “Those reliant on Chinese supply lines will be switching to alternative sources but they will be hoping that these other sources can cope with the extra demand,’’ said Peter Newport, director of UK-based Chemical Business Association (CBA), whose members include inks and coatings producers and distributors supplying the European market.
Some analysts in Europe are predicting that the impact of coronavirus could last well into the second half of the year.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is expecting China’s economy to return to normal in the second quarter of the year. “But we are also looking at more dire scenarios where the spread of the virus continues for longer and more globally, and the growth consequences are more protracted,’’ Kristalina Georgieva, IMF’s managing director, said at a meeting of the G20 group of the world’s leading economies.
The persistent interruptions of supplies of materials from China in recent years have aroused debate among ink, coatings and other companies in Europe about the possible need for reshoring or investment in European production capacity for import substitutes like certain pigments and their intermediates and additives such as photoinitiators and other curing agents.
“That raises the question about whether the competitive cost of Chinese products and their much-improved quality make reshoring worthwhile,’’ said Newport.
Regulatory Pressures on Raw Materials
Some of the upward pressure on raw material costs for inks and coatings in Europe had been easing last year because of upstream softer prices for petrochemical feedstocks due to lower oil prices.
On the other hand, lower raw material costs have been at least partially offset by the rising costs of tougher regulatory restrictions.
The main source of the regulations affecting inks and their ingredients is the EU’s 13-year-old chemicals legislation REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals). After its registration of the safety profiles of approximately 30,000 industrial chemicals was completed in mid-2018, the main requirements of REACH have been the continuous updating of the safety dossiers of each registered substance.
Proposals by the European Commission setting a series of deadlines for the updating of registrations are being opposed by a range of sectors, including inks and coatings companies and their raw material suppliers.
The Commission’s critics claim that the short time-spans created by the deadlines make the updating process too complex and costly. But at least one NGO is trying to push the Commission in the opposite direction by pressing for annual updating of registrations.
The Helsinki-based European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), which is responsible for the implementation of REACH, has also been increasing its follow-up checks on the contents of registration dossiers. These involve in-depth investigations of the long-term environmental and health effects of individual chemicals, which can be another additional cost burden for registrants.
Some can result in ink makers that are REACH registrants, their raw material suppliers and ink users having to conduct tests to obtain additional data. Information is being requested on effects like the development of unborn children, genetic mutations and aquatic toxicity. If tests are necessary, details of these have to be vetted first by the agency.
“We know that European consumers are more worried about impacts of chemicals than ever before,’’ said Bjorn Hansen, ECHA’s executive director. “(We’ve stepped up registration checks) to make sure companies follow the law and ensure the safety of chemicals they sell. This work is crucial to prevent harmful chemicals from entering the EU market and ultimately (to) minimize chemical pollution in Europe.’’
Individual EU countries have also been doing their own evaluations of chemicals under the REACH legislation. These have resulted in chemicals being made subject to risk management plans and being identified as substances of very high concern (SVHC). This could mean they would have to be specifically authorized to stay on the market unless their producers or suppliers could produce evidence to the contrary.
Regulators have also been broadening the scope of their activities to substances that previously were not considered to pose significant risks. These include nanomaterials which the European Commission has defined as particles with one or more external dimensions in the size range of 1-100 nanometers. Under new REACH requirements, details of nanoforms of substances have to be included in annexes of their registration dossiers.
At least four EU countries – France, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden – have introduced registries of nanomaterials in their domestic markets. In the absence of stricter requirements at the EU level, more countries may introduce their own specific regulator.
Sustainability and the Ink Industry
In addition to REACH, regulators have been paying closer attention to sustainability issues. But sustainability standards of products and/or their chemicals have also been becoming a big issue among customers and end-users of inks, especially retail chains and brand owners with packaging.
This is mainly in response to a growing anxiety among consumers about matters like climate change, loss of biodiversity and air and water pollution.
In the frontline of these worries among consumers is packaging, which has been one of the few major print sectors in Europe to be growing in value terms.
Plastics in packaging have been increasingly linked with unacceptable pollution in rivers and oceans. As a result, a growing number of retail chains and brand owners are switching their packaging materials from plastic to carton and board.
A new impetus behind greater sustainability has been the concept of the circular economy based on a system of the three “Rs” – reduce, recycle, reuse.
The European Commission has set a target of a four-fold rise by 2025 in the collection of waste and its processing into new cycles of materials production. By 2030 the EU is aiming for 70% recycling of packaging waste with a mandatory reduction of municipal waste disposal in a landfill to a maximum of 10%.
The circular economy could pose big technological challenges for inks makers and users like packaging producers. Recyclability will be a key downstream requirement among both customers and consumers.
Few inks on the present European market have been developed with the circular economy in mind.
A key feature of recyclability is the idea of reusing materials as much as possible so that they have at least two life cycles. Hence the inks and other components in printed products will be expected to be completely free of potentially hazardous chemicals or those which are restricted by REACH.
In fact, in the growing market for recyclates or secondary materials, buyers want materials not only without dangerous ink chemicals but also without any traces of ink. Even tiny particles of ink can show up as dark specs in recycled products, while during different reuse cycles they will conglomerate with other residues.
In the age of the circular economy, inks with a considerable additional value will be those without impurities and/or can be easily separated from their substrates.
Ink producers are joining or forming partnerships in the development of printed products that will be able to generate high-quality recyclates.
“The only way to prevent plastic packaging from ending up as waste in the ocean is to recycle it in a high-quality manner after use,’’ said Reinhard Schneider, managing owner Werner & Mertz, a German cleaning and care products company, who has formed a joint recyclate development partnership with Siegwerk, a packaging inks producer, and other members of the packaging value chain.
Companies in value-creation chains are starting to collaborate in recycling initiatives because of the need for the recyclability of products like packaging to be determined at the design stage. “It is important that we, as a printing ink manufacturer, are included early in such packaging projects,’’ said Thomas Boucoiran, Siegwerk’s global head for brand owner collaboration.
In a collaboration aimed at improving the recyclability of plastic waste, the company joined forces with APK AG, a German specialist in making high-quality plastic granulate from plastic waste. “Plastic waste is such a complex topic that it cannot be solved by one industry player or one sector of the industry alone,’’ said an APK spokesman.
hubergroup, another leading German ink maker, has a partnership with the international brewery Carlsberg for the production of Cradle to Cradle (C2C) bottle labels for its brands. The ink producer is also planning similar partnerships with a leading German discount retailer and an international furniture company.
It wants to make itself an open-source of information on recycling solutions based on the C2C approach to enable maximum reuse of materials. “We are aware of our social responsibility and see it as our task not only to optimize our own products and processes but also to pass on this knowledge,’’ Heiner Klokkers, hubergroup chairman, told a C2C Congress in Berlin in February 2020.
Together with the pressure to lower costs, sustainability is a major driver behind the development of innovative ink technologies and applications. Green inks have been gaining market share in Europe.
There is more use of bio-plastics, for example, in ink resins because of their low carbon footprints, greater biodegradability and lower emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
In response to the increasing demand for carton and board packaging as an alternative to plastic materials, ink producers are having to develop higher-quality inks specifically for paper substrates. Flint Group introduced last year its HexaCode water-based inks for corrugated board and paper bags. The range offers improvement in areas identified by customers, such as wash up, mechanical resistance and tonal printing, according to Flint Group.
Sometimes the solutions for carton printing have been found through collaborations between ink producers and other companies from different disciplines.
In a joint project with color software company Esko, Sun Chemical provided for PAWI Verpackungen AG, a Swiss specialist in cardboard and paper packaging, a seven-color expanded color gamut (ECG) printing facility. It enables PAWI to offer customers the option of ECG instead of spot color printing for certain jobs. It cut costs and also had environmental benefits, such as energy savings, less ink waste, fewer press wash-ups and reduced transport requirements.
Sun Chemical has also been carrying out tests on its SunPakFSP food packaging offset ink set so that its users can appreciate its eco-friendly benefits.
The tests have shown that the inks, based on renewable biomaterials and which has in recent years in Europe been achieving double-digit annual sales growth, comprise 77% organic carbon with the remainder being petrochemical fossil carbon, mainly contained in its pigments.
“Our emphasis on sustainability will continue to be fundamental to our innovation and product development and is gaining broad support from our customers,” said Felipe Mellado, Sun Chemical’s chief marketing officer.
UV LED has become the main impetus behind the relatively fast growth in print curing, due mostly to its low costs, despite complaints from printers about the high price of its inks, and its suitability for current trends in printing such as short runs. It has also been gaining a reputation for sustainability because of its low energy consumption, particularly through its ability to target UV light at specific areas of the substrate. It could also be used on temperature-sensitive and thin substrates. Being reliant on an electronics-based process, it also has a cleaner image.
Like with recyclability inks, its reputation for eco-friendliness has been achieved with the help of partnerships between ink producers, press manufacturers and UV-LED equipment developers.
Siegwerk, for example, has an agreement for the development and supply of UV LED inks to the European branch of the Japanese press manufacturer Komori, which has a proprietary low-energy UV LED system with carbon dioxide emissions 25% of those from conventional UV curing technologies.
A big drawback of UV LED which is harming its sustainability reputation is that it produces printed surfaces whose inks are difficult to separate from their substrates during recycling. Siegwerk launched an ink last year which it claimed solved the problem by giving UV LED inks deinkability levels comparable to those of conventional oil-based sheetfed offset inks.
Sustainability gives the European printing industry and its suppliers like ink producers a key advantage in its fight to remain at the forefront of modern communications. This is due to an increased perception among European consumers that social media and the rest of the electronic communications sector with its rapidly expanding data storage and processing capacity is consuming increasing amounts of non-renewable energy.
By contrast, the print sector, particularly that part of it reliant on paper, is offsetting its CO2 emissions to a considerable extent through high levels of recycling. The recycling rate of paper in Europe is now 72%.
Also, European consumers are showing a rising preference in some key areas for obtaining information from print rather than online. An increasing proportion of people trust printed more than online information. One recent study showed that 69% of Europeans prefer to read books in print form.
Among advertisers, an important trend is the growing share of their expenditure being switched from online to print.
Over the next few years, there is rising optimism among pro-print campaigners that the long decline in revenues from printed products, particularly in the publications sector, may start to be reversed.