CONTI-AIR® Symposium 2010 Addresses Climate-Neutral Printing

How can we achieve optimum energy efficiency in print shops? How can a print shop implement themes such as climate protection and energy efficiency in its everyday operations? These are only a few of the questions presented at the CONTI-AIR® Symposium in Northeim. "More and more media publishers and commercial enterprises are accepting responsibility for the environment by either explicitly requesting sustainably produced printed products or manufacturing such products themselves", stated Dr. Thomas Perkovi?, head of the printing blanket segment at ContiTech Elastomer Coatings.

This company provides an important contribution to climatefriendly printing with its PURE PRINTING label products: It is the world's first manufacturer to establish a socalled Carbon Footprint, a climate balance for printing blankets. According to the study, there are 70% fewer climatically detrimental CO2 emissions in ContiTech printing blanket production than in manufacture of the printing blankets standard around the world. The remaining 30 percent of the CO2 emissions at ContiTech Elastomer Coatings are compensated by climate protection certificates from the natureOffice Climate Protection Agency in Frankfurt.

The Dierichs Druck + Media (DDM) Company from Kassel was also present and reported descriptively how they manage everyday challenges for climatic neutrality and quality. Since May 2010 this print shop has offered customers climatically neutral printed products using the climateneutral printing blankets from ContiTech. "The market demands environmentally conscious action and we satisfy these demands", explained DDM Manager Marc von Kiedrowsky. "We do not make any compromises regarding the quality of our products. That is why we appreciate the ContiTech printing blankets, particularly their long service life and good price/benefit ratio."

In addition to the presentation by Dierichs Druck + Media, well known specialists at the symposium dealt with all concrete possibilities for environmental protection in every day operations and production. Andreas Weckwert from the natureOffice Climate Protection Agency opened the series of presentations with his contribution to the subject of "Climatic neutrality, the mechanism for commitment to voluntary climate protection", Energy Efficiency Advisor Jürgen Bühler gave tips on how to achieve optimal energy efficiency in print shops, Certified Engineer Andreas Harig, Head of Tempering Technology at Technotrans AG spoke on energy efficient machine cooling and heat reclamation, Detlef Braun, CEO at EWPA, explained the advantages of waterless offset printing for climateneutral printing and Volker Wendt, Area Manager of ContiTech Elastomer Coatings, concluded the series of presentations with the latest information on climateneutral printing blankets under the label PURE PRINTING. A tour of ContiTech's Northeim plant rounded off the symposium.