Epson points partners to green benefits of inkjet

As a result of its reliance on paper and the impact that can have on trees and carbon emissions, the print industry has long been at the forefront of driving sustainability.

For those working in sustainability at the major print vendors, the current focus is not only to inform partners of the efforts made to reduce carbon and to improve the percentage of recycled materials used, but to underline the benefits of opting for energy efficient options.

Epson has already declared its commitments to getting to a net-zero position by 2050, and it is working ever closer with partners to improve sustainability levels across its ecosystem as it moves towards that goal.

“The reason why that is so important is because it’s setting a precedent for us and our partners, our suppliers and our customers to have common ground between us and them,” said Taran Rai, Epson’s corporate sustainability manager.

“We’re trying to really instil and have that business responsibility within your supply chain, where you almost have visibility of everything,” she added “For us, 2050 has always been a priority. It’s a journey that we have to go on. It’s an ambitious target.

“Obviously, print gets bad rap because, essentially, to print is to use paper,” she said, adding that the firm encouraged customers to responsibly source their stocks, and it was innovating to improve its sustainability position as it moved towards 2050.

The key message from Epson to its partners is to embrace the energy-efficiency improvements the vendor has made, which reduce the demand for power but also improve budgets for users.

“With inkjet printing, the fundamental of it is that there is less heat consumption because you’re not baking toner onto a page, and that means that you’re consuming less energy – I think it’s up to 83% less energy between laser and inkjet. That’s a significant difference,” said Rai. “We’re trying to give customers an alternative to what is currently an energy-intensive process so they have an alternative, less energy-intensive process that they can use, but still have the same results at the end of it.”

Rai said the benefits of reducing energy helped customers with budgets but also enabled a straightforward way to improve their sustainability position, which matters to the decision-makers its channel is talking to.

“We spoke to a couple of our resellers and, before, they were in the room with just an IT manager or just a facilities manager, things are changing now. So, now people are in the room with sustainability managers and finance managers. Really, what you want to be able to do is make a quick change, which will save you money and save you energy as well,” she said.

Rai added that conversations around sustainability were widening as more channel customers understood the need to take positive action. “SMEs are beginning to be brought further into the fold as well, understanding that the environmental benefits of something that you’re buying is becoming more and more important,” she said.

At last week’s Canalys Channel Forum, the channel was urged to remain steadfast on the sustainability front. Ben Caddy, senior analyst at Omdia, talked of the continuing need to be able to demonstrate a green commitment.

“Sustainability is still coming up in RFPs. The biggest myth of the year is that everyone stopped caring about sustainability. It’s critical to so many of your biggest customers, and partners do not have the luxury of abandoning sustainability and ESG just because the political pendulum swung the other way,” he said.