It is probably just me, but there's a sense that printers are starting once again to think green. Perhaps they are all just bored with whinging about the economy? This sense is still more whisper than scream, but I am hearing more printers talking about the environment. And more industry associations are jumping on the environmental bandwagon, including a collection of European associations, that are selling their own carbon calculating tool to members.

Maybe this whisper is not so audible in the wide-format sector, but even amongst sign-makers and display producers and their suppliers, there are glimmers and flickers of environmental awareness. There has even been a new trade show announced, EcoPrint.

Perhaps more interestingly, we've seen a number of announcements lately about carbon footprint reduction through basic measures such as workflow analysis, which can help reduce waste and remakes. Workflow analysis is probably something display- and sign-makers ought to be doing on a regular basis, even if they don't have much of a green agenda.

Workflow efficiency, as with any efficiency measure, goes hand in hand with reducing a business's environmental impact. This is probably self-evident because more efficient processes mean less cost and less waste. All very fine in theory, but how do you go about putting workflow evaluation into practice? Where do you start, once you have decided that a workflow audit is important? You start by setting an objective. What are you trying to achieve? What result do you expect? How much time and money will you put into the effort?

Once you have established some boundaries, start with a general audit of your most frequent workflows, by customer, product type or value, whichever is the least diverse because this will give you a model for the stuff that is more complicated. You will be surprised at how many processes overlap, are redundant or pointless when you map tasks and processes out. Such things as defining values for output preferences (dpi, screening, etc) which might get overridden later in the workflow, or double-keying instead of using previously defined values from your customer databases or using MIS defaults, all take tiny slices of time and effort. Aggregated over the course of the day such things can add up to a lot time and money.

Making sure your workflow is efficient is a step towards improving your carbon footprint. It doesn't quite turn your business into a haven of green, but it is at least a start.