SMART Papers’ premium cast-coated Kromekote is now fully Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified. This gives corporations and graphics professionals immediate access to the most luxurious and environmentally responsible printing and packaging in the world. Kromekote is the first triple cast-coated brand to achieve this kind of certification.

This achievement is an important advance for SMART Papers and reinforces their commitment to supplying the widest range of FSC premium coated and uncoated printing and packaging papers in North America. SMART Papers is North America’s largest independent manufacturer and marketer of premium coated and uncoated printing papers. They are currently building a new energy facility at its manufacturing center. It will be fossil fuel free by late 2009, enabling all of the company’s papers to be fully carbon neutral.

This will give customers confidence that they are dealing with the most environmentally responsible printing papers available from any US manufacturer. The ultra-glossy Kromekote is widely regarded by printers and designers as the “gold standard” in printing papers. The brand now sets a new “green standard” for premium environmentally preferable coated papers.

EFI, the world leader in customer-focused digital printing innovation, launched a new option for EFI Fiery XF and EFI Colorproof XF. The XFlow option is a powerful prepress and production workflow tool to process digital documents easily, automatically and accurately on large to superwide format devices.

XF is designed to give professionals in large format inkjet production and graphic arts a powerful PDF-based workflow tool to streamline production processes for consistent, accurate printing with Fiery XF and Colorproof XF. XFlow automates pre-flight to reduce make-ready work to a minimum and frees up time to focus on more value-add tasks. The advanced color management tools give accurate color control automatically. Printing professionals will use the new workflow option to optimize document make-ready, increase efficiency and manage color accurately.

The new XFlow option for XF enables print professionals to deliver accurately printed documents regardless of file formats, print data quality or print size, resulting in effortless job processing while saving time and money on every print. The XFlow option automates pre-flight by checking images, graphics and fonts for correct embedding – errors are reported and rectified automatically with the correct module.

The Kodak Nexpress S2500 Digital Production Color Press features up to five color digital printing capability at a speed of 2,500 A3 sheets per hour, or 83 A4/letter images per minute. The S2500 offers flexible front end options, input and output accessories, unique Fifth Imaging Unit capabilities, and onsite upgradeability. These features enable print providers to deliver unique applications, drive more pages per shift, and more profit per page to increase their businesses.

The fifth station offers the possibility of additional in-line features such as new dimensional clear coating, watermarking, glossing, protection coating, color gamut expansion, and MICR. Modular features include feeder options up to 11,000 sheet capacity, collation capability of up to five different media, and both cut sheet and roll fed paper on the same press. Output options support multiple high capacity deliveries and an inline or near-line booklet maker.

At the Graph Expo 2008, the S2500 will feature printing with the new Kodak Nexpress Intelligent Dimensional Coating Solution and the Dimensional Clear Dry Ink. They combine to create a raised printing effect that enables tactile effects so that images have a dimensional feel that imitates the surface of items in the image. Customers could print an image of an orange that feels like one or would grain that feels like wood grain.

Sommer Corporate Media in Wailblingen, Germany has purchased three six-color HP Indigo 7000 Digital Presses, doubling the company’s digital printing capabilities. The HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press was launched earlier this year and is designed for companies requiring production volumes greater than one million pages per month, and significantly increases the break-even point against offset printing.

Sommer Corporate Media offers a diverse range of product across crucial commercial and consumer markets, including photo-specialty applications, manuals, personalized mailings, brochures, and customized web-to-print solutions. Some of their customers include Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Audi, Chrysler, Altana, and BASF. The HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press runs at a process speed that is 76% faster than the HP Indigo Press 5500, enabling it to print 120 A4 pages per minute in color or 240 A4 pages per minute monochrome.

The maximum print format of 317×464mm is larger than the HP Indigo Press 5500. The HP Indigo 7000 Digital Press processes substrates ranging in weight from 60 to 350gsm. A paper supply unit comprising four drawers with an overall capacity of 6,100 sheets is provided as standard. The HP Indigo Press is capable of printing up to seven colors and can reproduce an extended gamut with the six-color HP IndiChrome process.

Leading print and business solutions specialist, Everydayprint has teamed up with green solutions provider, Sponsor Trees (www.sponsortrees.co.uk), in a bid to fund the planting of 12,000 trees in Ethiopia.

Sponsor Trees facilitates tree planting projects throughout the developing world with each initiative providing sustainable income to local communities whilst also ensuring that large quantities of Co2 are taken from the global atmosphere, helping to prevent global warming.

Everydayprint managing director, Jason Walker, explains:  “For some time we have wanted to find a way of demonstrating our commitment to the provision of a sustainable future for our world environment and moreover for the people who live in areas where deforestation has had a devastating impact.

“We rely on trees for the paper that provides us with our livelihood and we recognise the fact that we can’t just go on taking away from one of our world’s biggest natural resources.  By getting involved with this initiative we will be able to make a real difference, not only to our global environment but equally importantly, to the lives and futures of many communities and families in Ethiopia.”

From 1st June, every £50.00 of revenue generated from Macclesfield-based Everydayprint’s on-line sales and every £100.00 generated from manual sales will see the company pay for a tree to be planted in conjunction with one of Sponsor Trees’ current projects in Ethiopia.  Jason continues: “Our target is to raise enough money to plant around 12,000 trees in our first year of involvement but we are in this for the long haul and who knows how many trees we can see planted in the future?”

From Africa to Asia and from South America to the Caribbean, the key benefit of teaming up with Sponsor Trees lies in supporting the organisation’s proactive approach to helping many thousands of people who are currently unable to meet their daily nutritional needs build sustainable futures for themselves.

Jonathan Stross, director of Sponsor Trees, explains: “Much of our work is undertaken in Ethiopia were 97% of the county’s forestry has been destroyed.  Among other things, that means that two billion tonnes of top soil is being lost to the River Nile every year and only by replenishing the already depleted forests can we look to turn the situation around.

“The environment certainly needs our support but so too do the numerous local communities and Jason is leading the way in helping us to provide innovative green solutions that can help to build a sustainable future for countless people.  We hope that his ethical decision will help other businesses across various sectors to do the same.”