Suzhou Advance Printing achieves Carbon Neutral Certification

Suzhou China based label converter Suzhou Advance Printing has achieved Carbon Neutral status with AWP-DEW and AWP-CleanFlat CleanPrint plates from Asahi Photoproducts.  

Founded in 2001, the company has now expanded to four locations - Suzhou (headquarter), Guangzhou, Tianjin and Urumqi. 

Zhao Feng, the company’s technology department general manager, shared his experiences at a recent technical seminar, attended virtually by more than 100 people and organized by Asahi Photoproducts and Esko. Suzhou Advance Printing, which has 300 employees and an annual turnover of 240 million Chinese yuan (35 million USD), achieved its Carbon Neutral status, in partnership with SGS, in September of 2022. 

The converter provides labels in personal care, automotive (oil), food and beverage and pharmaceutical industries. In the past, it used thermal plates, and was looking for a higher quality, more reliable and more sustainable plate.  

Suzhou Advance Printing partners with a local repro house and worked with them to find a way that would not only meet its needs but also help the company reduce its carbon footprint to contribute toward the national peak carbon neutrality goal as well as to continuously improve its social responsibility as a company. 

Feng notes that the AWP-DEW and AWP-CleanFlat CleanPrint plates from Asahi Photoproducts were chosen for several reasons including water-wash processing capability. The plates are capable of producing long runs on press with reduced stops for plate cleaning due to high ink transfer and print stability. They offer high durability in printing small reverse text and highlights and color stability in long runs with high ink density and laydown. They deliver high quality print with stochastic screening. 

The company also found that the plates shorten make-ready times and improve its Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) by 21 percent when it began using these plates in November 2020.  

In the first year, the company observed a cost savings of approximately one million Chinese yuan (1.45 million USD) attributed to the improved efficiency and reduced waste these plates deliver. The plates are imaged using an Esko CDI Spark 4260. 

In working with SGS to achieve Carbon Neutral certification, Suzhou Advance Printing worked to clearly identify emission boundaries and sources, determine emission factors and present data that accounted for all emissions. In addition to adopting Asahi’s plates, the company is using green energy and continuously introducing energy-saving and emission reduction projects.  

Feng said: ‘We are also establishing an Energy Management Center to help us pursue these goals. We were delighted with our Asahi relationship and the work they have done to achieve Carbon Neutral certification for the AWP plates. Learning from their experiences and being able to include the data they provided us on the carbon footprint of their plates and their own Carbon Neutral Certification were valuable references for our carbon neutrality journey. We look forward to our continued partnership and collaborating on our joint journey to an even more sustainable future.’ 

Ryo Ichihashi, technical support professional, said: ‘At Asahi Kasei, achieving Carbon Neutral status is a high priority. It is an extreme pleasure to be working with a forward-looking company like Suzhou Advance Printing who is as dedicated to the industry and to improving sustainability as we are. Our congratulations to them on this amazing achievement, and we are grateful we have been able to help.’