Analysis: The Impact of FSC Certification on Printing Companies

ppzhan news:

"SIG Combibloc launches China's first beverage carton bearing the FSC certification mark", "Tetra Pak China to launch FSC-certified paper packaging", "Mengniu to adopt new packaging materials with FSC forest certification", "Jielong Art Printing Company launches FSC certification", "Hunan Tianwen Xinhua Printing Company launches FSC certification"... In the first half of this year, with the promotion of concepts such as green, environmental protection and low carbon by the Shanghai World Expo, the printing and packaging industry began a new round of FSC certification, setting off a green wave of "forest packaging".

Consulting companies: this is an environmental certification reflected in paper

Let us first get to know FSC certification. Public information shows that FSC, the Forest Stewardship Council (TheForestStewardshipCouncil), is a non-profit non-governmental organization. It provides certification for pulp mills, paper mills, printing plants, flooring plants and furniture plants that are able to follow strict forest management standards, proving that the wood and paper used in their products all come from sustainable, legal and harvestable forest resources.

"From the perspective of green printing, what FSC certification can achieve is only the environmental friendliness of the paper among printing materials. For a printing and packaging enterprise to fully achieve green printing, it must carry out cleaner production, advancing on all fronts from the use of equipment, the choice of processes and the selection of materials to the discharge of the three wastes." Beijing Dacheng Xinhua Certification Consulting Co., Ltd. is devoted to certification consulting for the news and publishing and printing industries, and Qian Lei, the company's general manager, defines FSC certification in just such terms.

What changes will FSC certification bring to a company's production management process? Shanghai Qiangsi Enterprise Management Consulting Co., Ltd. has provided FSC certification consulting for more than a dozen printing and packaging companies, and Li Jianbiao, the company's general manager, explains that there are currently two kinds of FSC certification, namely forest management certification and chain-of-custody certification, and that what printing and packaging companies need to do is the latter. He says: "The big change for a printing company after chain-of-custody certification is that it must supervise the entire supply chain of FSC products through the whole process — procurement, warehousing, production, processing, packaging and sales — the purpose being to effectively distinguish FSC products from non-FSC products, thereby assuring buyers and consumers that the certified goods they buy are products from well-managed forests."

FSC certification is not achieved once and for all. Li Jianbiao says that after obtaining certification, a printing and packaging company may apply the FSC mark to products printed with FSC-certified materials. But the company must follow the principle of good faith; if a company affixes the FSC certification mark to products printed with non-FSC-certified paper, once the certification body discovers this, its use of the FSC certification mark will be suspended.

In addition, passing FSC certification does not mean that a company produces all of its products as FSC-certified products. Qian Lei explains: "Certification is only a proof of capability, proving that a company can produce FSC-certified products and can make the entire process of procurement and production traceable. Whether it actually produces FSC-certified products still depends on customer requirements."

Statistics: certified companies are concentrated in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta

What is the current state of FSC certification in China's printing and packaging industry? With pointers from people in the industry, a check was made on the FSC website. After keywords such as "china" and "print" were entered in the relevant section, the page showed that from 2007 to date, 151 printing companies in China have passed FSC certification. Analysis of the data on these certified companies reveals the following characteristics.

First, certified companies are concentrated in the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta regions. Among all certified companies, those located in Guangdong Province, an important base for China's printing exports, account for half. Of these, Dongguan, Shenzhen and Guangzhou each have about 20. Hong Kong, which lists printing as one of its four major industries, has more than ten. Among certified companies in the Yangtze River Delta region, Shanghai has nearly 20, Zhejiang more than 10 and Jiangsu nearly 10. In addition, Fujian has about 10, Beijing fewer than 5, and Shandong and Jiangxi one or two each. Second, large printing companies with Hong Kong or foreign investment backgrounds passed certification earlier.

The data show that as early as 2007, C&C Joint Printing (Guangdong) Co., Ltd., Heshan Astros Printing Co., Ltd., Hung Hing Printing (China) Printing Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Artron Colour Printing Co., Ltd., Starlite Printing (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. and Leefung-Asco Printers Shenzhen Co., Ltd. had already passed certification. Some groups had multiple companies around the country pass certification; for example, all of RR Donnelley's companies in Beijing, Shanghai and Dongguan passed certification, and C&C's companies in Guangdong and its Safety Printing Company in Hong Kong all passed certification.

Why are certified companies concentrated in these regions and among these enterprises? Qian Lei told China News and Publication Journal the fundamental reason: "In the past, printing companies' certifications were always the same old three: ISO9000, ISO14000 and ISO18000. Now Europe and the United States attach great importance to environmental issues, and a printing company that wants to take foreign orders has to carry out FSC certification." And as the main regions that take overseas orders, the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta naturally see local companies paying great attention to FSC certification.

Printing companies: certifying in order to take foreign orders

In order to understand the situation of printing and packaging companies carrying out FSC certification and related business, visits were made at different times to companies that had passed certification. When talking about their original motivation for FSC certification, companies often mention two reasons: one is to protect the environment, and the other is to take foreign orders.

C&C Joint Printing (Guangdong) Co., Ltd. passed FSC certification as early as 2007. Luo Haiping, director of the company's technical department, says that the company's certification was in response to the needs of environmental protection and of expanding the market. He says: "Before the company carried out certification there were very few orders in this area, but after certification they grew rapidly. In the year of certification the company had orders for FSC-certified products worth several hundred thousand yuan, and by last year this had surged to several tens of millions of yuan." But he also says that FSC-certified business still accounts for a very small proportion of the whole business; foreign orders make up 70%–80% of the company's total business, of which FSC-certified business accounts for only 5% of foreign order volume. The company's current FSC-certified products are mainly instructions for electronic products such as Apple and Sony, as well as picture albums, hardcover books and some commercial printed materials. The company has set up a dedicated area for storing FSC paper and finished products, uses dedicated machines to print FSC products, and keeps records of the entire production process of FSC products.

Guangdong Zhongshan Zhongrong Paper Printing Products Co., Ltd. passed FSC certification just this May. Lei Zhile, manager of the company's overseas expansion department, says: "The company hopes to meet customers' requirements in terms of environmental protection, because many European customers require that materials be taken from wood from renewable forests when they place orders. So the company carried out FSC certification, first hoping to obtain more overseas orders, and second to prove that the company makes a contribution in environmental protection." He also admits frankly that those currently requiring the use of FSC-certified paper are basically foreign customers, and that domestic customers have no such requirement.

Industry appeal: looking forward to domestic customers using certified products

Manager Guo of Jiangsu Suzhou Shida Printing Co., Ltd. expressed this confusion: although the company passed FSC certification in August 2008, because its FSC business volume is relatively small, when purchasing FSC-certified paper it usually cannot reach the minimum order quantity required by paper suppliers. And if the company were to buy paper according to that minimum order quantity, it would inevitably cause a backlog of paper and the tying up of funds.

As for the cause of this problem, Manager Guo analyzes that it is mainly that too few printing and packaging companies have passed FSC certification and that the volume of business requiring the printing of FSC products is also very small, so when purchasing FSC-certified paper a certain scale cannot be reached, and if a certain volume cannot be reached, the paper mill will not produce it specially. She says: "Jiangsu Suzhou Shida Printing Co., Ltd. is a company with a Japanese investment background,

mainly printing instructions for electronic products for more than 130 Japanese-brand enterprises such as Sony, Canon, Hitachi and Toshiba, and its FSC business is also concentrated among these foreign-funded customers, with basically no domestic customers requiring the printing of related business."

Li Jianbiao, general manager of Shanghai Qiangsi Enterprise Management Consulting Co., Ltd., also says that although he has done FSC certification for many companies, he very rarely sees related products in his own life. He says: "I have seen only two companies using FSC products: one is HSBC Hong Kong, all of whose paper products carry the FSC mark; the other I saw at a five hotel in Lujiazui, Shanghai. It is usually foreigners who are pushing the use of FSC-certified products, and few domestic companies use them." He believes that only when all companies uphold social responsibility and all wish to protect the environment can FSC certification truly be promoted and printing and packaging companies have more related business.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362181.html