BLUELINE RANKING OF SUSTAINABILITY 2019
Vancouver. October 9, 2019 – Canopy’s fifth annual Blueline Ranking, published today, reveals that the top five ranked printers are pushing green innovation to another level by supporting the development of Next Generation Solutions such as agricultural residue and wheat straw papers in North America.
Domestic production of straw pulp, paper and packaging is set to hit the North American market within the next six months with the opening of the Columbia Pulp mill in Washington State, USA. With wheat straw pulp carrying half the ecological footprint of conventional wood fibre pulps, top ranked printers understand that next-generation papers will help reduce the impacts of their operations, as well as those of packaging and paper, on the world’s forests and natural systems. Leading printers are actively fostering the development of these papers, which promises this new environmentally friendly shift in paper production shortly.
Canopy’s 2019 Blueline Ranking is an important tool that helps businesses that use print products reach their climate and sustainability goals. This year’s top ranking Blueline printers are The Printing House, with a new all-time high score, followed closely by Hemlock Printers in second place, and Mitchell Press in third. All three of these companies secured coveted dark green ink drops, indicating their commitment to sustainability, Ancient and Endangered Forest conservation and Next Generation Solutions. TC Transcontinental Printing, the seventh largest printer in North America, also took action on conservation and innovation and is ranked fourth, moving up from a ninth place in the previous edition.
“DCC is proud to have scored so high in our debut year in the Blueline Ranking,” said Don Terwilliger from DCC. “It’s an honour to be recognized in the Blueline Ranking for our commitment to providing great service to our clients while putting a focus on sustainability. We plan to do more advocacy work in coming years, and to prioritize papers made from agricultural residues to further the cause of forest conservation.”
“With the world increasingly attentive to the health of our planet, it’s heartening to see the sustainability progress of the top printers in this year’s Blueline Ranking,” said Nicole Rycroft, Founder and Executive Director at Canopy. “Their actions to protect the world’s Ancient and Endangered Forests and draw Next Generation Solutions like straw papers through to market, positions them strongly with customers.”
The top three dark green printers distinguished themselves in 2019 by:
- Requesting suppliers provide forest of origin information in order to assess the risk of having Ancient and Endangered Forests in their supply chain.
- Asking at least one mill partner to test paper made from North American sourced agricultural residue fibre.
- Writing to government decision makers to encourage them to implement additional conservation plans and protected area proposals in a priority landscape in Canada’s Boreal Forest.
See the full 2019 Blueline Ranking here.Read more Blueline Ranking Highlights below.
For more information please contact:
Laura Repas, Canopy
+1 416 729-7484
laura.repas@canopyplanet.org
About Canopy
Canopy is a not-for-profit environmental organization dedicated to protecting forests, species and climate. Canopy has collaborated with more than 750 companies to develop innovative solutions, make their supply chains more sustainable and help protect our world’s remaining ancient and endangered forests. Canopy’s partners include H&M, Target, Sprint, Penguin Random House, Zara, TC Transcontinental, The Guardian and Scholastic. Canopy recently launched Pack4Good, a new campaign to reduce packaging’s impact on forest ecosystems. Canopy’s work relies on the support of individual donors who share our passion for the planet. www.canopyplanet.org
Blueline Ranking 2019 Highlights
Printers on the move up include:
- Digital Color Concepts is a new addition to the Blueline Ranking, and the printer with the biggest move, making their debut with an increase of 23.95 points. They are also the highest-ranking US-based printer.
- Marquis Book Printing is up by 17 points for a total of 31. Marquis is the largest Canadian printer of books for the publishing industry on this year’s list.
- Sandy Alexander is up 18 points for a total of 29.
Blueline Ranking At a Glance:
- The Blueline Ranking is fully interactive and can be sorted by subjects like points, performance on the Printing Impressions Top 400, or various other criteria.
- Each ranked printer also has a detailed company page with further details on the sustainability practices that resulted in their total points.
- Thirty-four printers were ranked, representing more than $28 billion USD in total sales.
- The Blueline Ranking includes printers in the top 20 of the Printing Impressions (PI) Top 400 that use paper substrates, plus any printers in the PI Top 400 that have a policy with Canopy. We also rank printers that have asked to be included or ones where our brand partners have asked us to include their printers.
- Thirteen printers improved their total score this year.
- Printers were assessed on 41 criteria for a possible total of 51 points. Read our FAQ to learn more about the criteria and the points allocated to each printer.
- A full report on 2019’s Blueline Ranking, featuring more in-depth analysis of the North American print sector, will be published later this fall.
