SGP Announces International Pilot Project of Its Leading Sustainability Certification Program

The Sustainable Green Printing Partnership (SGP), the leading authority in sustainable printing certifications, announced today a pilot project to expand its certification program beyond the United States and Canada. SGP has been successfully holding all audits virtually for more than a year. Using this method, the organization can expand internationally, allowing printers and industry suppliers worldwide to achieve SGP certification. Through its cloud-based SGP Impact Tracker, information for a virtual audit is quickly and effectively shared with SGP’s independent auditors.

“SGP certified facilities must renew their certification every two years,” said Wendy Nadan, SGP Lead Auditor.  “In 2018, SGP released the SGP Impact Tracker which helps facilities monitor sustainability performance over time and benchmarking efforts against an aggregate of other facilities. With enhancements, the Tracker provided a virtual audit solution for the current global situation. The new features of the Impact Tracker inspired us to rethink how we could extend the SGP certification to countries outside of North America. From the initial certification planning meeting to the completion of document review including photographic evidence, all can be accomplished virtually with the local sustainability team. Each facility can meet the expectations of the audit as if an SGP auditor were physically on-site.”

For more than ten years, SGP certification has been driving sustainable activities in the printing industry. With its sustainability management system and annual improvement projects, SGP certified facilities are industry leaders in providing sustainable printing and independent validation of their claims for a sustainable supply chain. SGP certification is given to facilities meeting the rigorous standards of the criteria developed by SGP. This is the only whole-facility certification program developed as a collaborative effort of the printing industry to define what it means to be a sustainable printer and to offer credible validation by a third party.

“We believe the flexibility of the virtual audit provides an opportunity for facilities worldwide to validate their sustainability programs through SGP,” said Marci Kinter, SGP co-founder, SGP Technical Committee chair and PRINTING United Alliance representative. “SGP has had a number of requests from printers in Asia and Europe to get certified. With the power of our SGP Impact Tracker and our revised certification criteria, SGP will be able to test the feasibility of extending its certification to the worldwide market.”

The SGP certification pilot program will be launched in October 2021 with the next revision of the SGP certification criteria, which is adopted after a public review process every five years. More program details including the application for pilot testing will be released in August 2021.

Print facilities interested in eliminating waste, reducing energy consumption, transitioning to sustainable materials, and winning new business from organizations that require sustainable printing practices should visit www.sgppartnership.org/certification to learn more about becoming SGP certified.