'Self-Declaration' Pushes Green Printing to a New Stage

Editor's note: The "Notice on the Implementation of Green Printing for Bills and Certificates" issued at the end of last year clarified the self-declaration approach of "the government designs the institutional framework, industry associations build the implementation platform, and testing institutions conduct testing and supervision". At present, the green printing self-declaration platform has been initially completed, and in July the first batch of pilot enterprises will begin online self-declaration.

At present, the implementation of green printing is mainly advanced through green printing certification. The specific process is: enterprises applying for certification are recommended by each province (region, municipality), the application materials received are reviewed and guidance is provided, technical services are carried out at the factory according to enterprise requirements, and effective technical services have been provided to a number of printing enterprises. Some regions with the necessary conditions have also actively promoted green printing certification work through various effective methods. However, because the number of companies qualified to serve enterprise certification is limited while the desire of printing enterprises to apply for green certification keeps rising, progress in obtaining certification and recertification has been relatively slow; together with the cost of certification, this has greatly limited the pace of popularizing and promoting green printing.

Entering 2014, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television proposed that green printing would fully enter the promotion stage, with the main task of establishing a green printing system across the entire printing industry. Its core is to make green printing production a basic practice for enterprises and to bring more printing enterprises into the ranks of green production. One of the main ideas is to build a "self-declaration" platform system.

On November 4, 2013, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Certification and Accreditation Administration jointly issued the "Notice on the Implementation of Green Printing for Bills and Certificates", which clarified the self-declaration approach of "the government designs the institutional framework, industry associations build the implementation platform, and testing institutions conduct testing and supervision". The parties concerned jointly discussed and studied the green printing self-declaration model. The Fifth Electronics Research Institute of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has the strength and experience to develop self-declaration, and has provided good organizational conditions and a hardware foundation for the green printing self-declaration implementation system.

In order to ensure the credibility of enterprises' self-declaration information on the self-declaration platform, on the one hand the self-declaration review and publication process is standardized to ensure the authenticity of the self-declaration information of enterprises entering the platform; on the other hand, through strict post-event supervision measures, self-declaration information of enterprises found to be untrue is revoked, and, in coordination with the integrity systems of government departments and industry associations, acts of enterprise dishonesty are punished to promote industry self-discipline.

Enterprise self-declaration is a method that has long existed in other fields, by which an enterprise declares on a certain platform that it meets a particular requirement. It also requires a complete system, including a platform, standards, measures, and guidelines, which is currently being established. It is reported that in the process of self-declaration, printing enterprises need to undergo testing by a third-party testing platform to ensure that the materials used and the processes comply with green printing standards or relevant legal provisions, and to promise that all information is true and valid and subject to inspection by the competent authorities at any time. Self-declaration can be filed on the platform through voluntary application by enterprises, which will greatly accelerate the process and intensity of advancing green printing nationwide.

At present, the green printing self-declaration platform has been initially completed, and the first batch of pilot enterprises will begin online self-declaration in July this year.

Under the leadership of the Transport Department and the Science and Technology Department of the Administration, the formulation of the "Green Printing Series of Industry Standards" by the National Printing Standardization Technical Committee has been fully launched. In March 2014, the Printing Standardization Technical Committee organized the founding meeting of the standard drafting group in Beijing. At present, the first draft of the green printing series of industry standards has been completed and is expected to be issued in the second half of this year.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn). Original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-361780.html