Epson - Digital Printing And Sustainability

Image Courtesy of Epson

The growing awareness of climate change has put the issue of sustainability of technologies and processes at the top of the agenda of many companies' future goals.

This is a forward-looking and necessary attitude that all parties - companies and consumers – have to promote, also to comply with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030).

The textile industry is one of the sectors in which the urgent need to find alternatives to traditional production processes has been under examination for several years.

This is a difficult task if you think about the evolution of consumer habits, which has seen the permanent consecration of the great giants of fast fashion and e-commerce.

It is a socio-cultural change that has inevitably had an impact on the entire production chain, which can be summarized in three main changes: the need to shorten production and delivery times, the reduction of production batches, the quest for uniqueness and extreme customization of the individual garment. 

According to a report recently published by McKinsey & Company in partnership with Global Fashion Agenda (GFA), the fashion industry is responsible for about 4% of global emissions, a figure equivalent to the annual GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions of France, Germany and the UK combined.

More than 70% of emissions come from the production, preparation and processing of raw materials. Therefore, reducing waste in production, before transport and distribution, could lead to savings of 24 million tonnes of GHG emissions. 

At the moment, digital printing solutions seem to be the perfect candidates to meet the sustainability requirements needed to trigger a change in the textile production chain, guaranteeing considerable energy and consumption savings.

In particular, inkjet printing, which came into being to reduce the time and costs of textile sample production,  has taken on an increasingly crucial role over twenty years, not only in the design but also in the production of printed fabrics.

The countless economic, logistic and productive advantages make it attractive not only to printers but also to brands, who are increasingly interested in this technology – it’s a "revolution" in the way of designing and producing clothing and accessories. 

Finally, in terms of environmental sustainability, compared to traditional printing systems, inkjet solutions allow water and energy consumption to be reduced and require lower quantities of dyes and other chemicals used in the pre and post-treatment phases. 

The factors that contribute to making digital printing processes more sustainable are multi-fold.

First of all, the chemical components used in inkjet printing (inks, thickeners, detergents and other auxiliaries) are used in smaller quantities than those required by traditional processes, allowing the reduction of both emissions and consumption.

In addition, the way ink droplets are dispensed in a precise and predetermined way on fabrics allows the precise delimitation of the area to be printed, avoiding waste and dispersion of chemical components.

Digital printing technology also makes other phases necessary in analogue processes, such as the preparation of printing pulp, superfluous.

This avoids the washing operations of the containers and equipment used for the production and distribution of colour, as the ink is already prepared in cartridges. Consequently, the consumption of water is also avoided.

The environmental efficiency of digital printing solutions is one of the cornerstones of Epson's philosophy, as well expressed in the Epson Group Sustainability Report to which Fig. 1 refers and where you can learn more about the advantages of digital textile printing.