Uncomplicated, Affordable Access to Sustainability for Swiss SMEs

The Swiss printing industry is celebrating ten years with myclimate in 2018. This partnership has been a success. Ultimately, greater climate protection and sustainability have been achieved in cooperation with Swiss printing companies and their customers. For the viscom industry magazine, Daniel Kammerer, Head of Consulting and Solutions and a member of the Executive Board at myclimate, and Stefano Gazzaniga, Head of Innovation, Management and Environment at viscom, took a look back at the beginnings of the partnership, reviewed its development and sketched its future goals.

from left: Daniel Kammerer in discussion with Stefano Gazzaniga, viscom

Mr Gazzaniga, for ten years <link www.viscom.ch= - external-link "Opens external link in current window">viscom </link>has collaborated with myclimate to promote sustainability in the printing industry. Why is your association doing this?

Stefano Gazzaniga: The graphics industry and its members have been under tremendous economic pressure in certain areas for many years. Here in Switzerland, we are unable to score highly in terms of price when compared internationally, but services and offerings in the environmental sphere offer our members very good opportunities to focus on their own strengths and to set themselves apart from the competition.

Why did you choose myclimate as a climate protection partner at the time?

Stefano Gazzaniga: viscom wanted to find a reputable and very professional partner for offers in the environmental sector, so the decision was very quickly made in favour of myclimate. The breadth of its services and the excellent projects that give our members optimum choice means that myclimate provides significant added value for our members.

What does this industry partnership mean for an organisation like myclimate?

Daniel Kammerer: The partnership with the printing industry has been a very crucial chapter in the myclimate success story over the last few years. It works according to the principle of “doing good and talking about it”. Through the dissemination of our myclimate label “climate-neutral printed matter”, we have been able to create an astonishingly broad reach for the topics of climate protection and sustainability. It’s not a case of pure “branding”; the crucial message that anyone and everyone can contribute something to a sustainable future is also conveyed.

Thus the printing industry functions as a “B2B partner”, providing us with access to many other industries. At the same time, the members of viscom are giving Swiss SMEs access to climate and sustainability solutions in a way that is uncomplicated and affordable.

How has the demand for sustainable solutions in the printing industry developed over the last ten years?

Daniel Kammerer: Thanks to our partnership with viscom, we have been able to make an impact on the market for “climate-neutral printed matter” right from the start. Through a whole host of different activities, such as efficiency consultations, training measures and climate neutrality through the in-house development of high-quality and credible climate protection projects, we have been able to raise awareness among buyers with great success. Thus, right from the beginning, we have managed to generate huge demand and satisfy it at the same time. We now find ourselves on a healthy, strong and stable footing.

Stefano Gazzaniga: At first, many companies were interested in certification for a very simple, yet important reason: they wanted (and still want) to do something concrete for climate protection, and they see climate-neutral printing as a very good tool for this. Recently we have noticed a shift: interest is still strong but is now increasingly driven from the customer side. For our members, this means that with the myclimate offering, they get the opportunity to acquire new customers.

Also not to be forgotten is the fact that with myclimate and its software platform, smart 3, our companies are able to prepare important key indicators that are required for ISO 14001 certification.

Read the full interview in the current issue of viscom magazine.

<link www.viscomedia.ch&gt;Go to the magazine </link>

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