Sustainability Assessment of Enterprises in Printing Industry

Abstract

A sustainability concept having been applied from global to national, regional and other levels, enterprises are striving to be more sustainable in environmental and social issues. There is a growing need to have sustainability assessment and implementation tools. The most popular is the Global Reporting Initiative which gives recommendations for sustainability assessment of enterprises in different sectors. The guidelines are prepared for logistics and transportation, financial services, mining and metals, telecommunication and the others but not yet for printing industry. The objective of the paper is to assess sustainability of printing enterprises. To achieve it the following tasks have been determined: 1) adopt sustainability assessment methodology to printing industry; 2) apply sustainability assessment to chosen printing enterprises and 3) suggest the measures for sustainable development of printing enterprises. A sustainability assessment system is developed and applied which consists of qualitative and quantitative parts and composite index. Qualitative and quantitative parts are aggregated into one improved sustainability index. Enterprises are rated according to their achievements in sustainability from unsustainable through basic to progressive sustainable enterprises. The sustainability indices show that enterprises are at the basic level of sustainability. The main areas for improvement in printing enterprises are the following: use of more ecologic paper, paints and other resources; reduction of volatile organic compounds, use of renewable energy, etc. The case of an applied sustainability assessment system has shown that it can be adapted to enterprises of other sectors.