Environmental responsibility is a customer requirement today and an obligation for us

V-TAB, headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, offers a vast range of services, everything from newspapers and direct advertising to signs and business printing in all shapes and sizes. The company’s production sites can be found in strategic locations all over Sweden, never far from its newspaper and direct advertising customers. V-TAB’s customers include some of Sweden’s best-known daily papers, magazines and business chains. Bengt Larsson, Quality and Environment Manager at V-TAB, gives some insights into the company and its focus on environmental responsibility.

<link www.v-tab.se/en/ - external-link "Opens external link in current window">V-Tab</link> was founded just 14 years ago and has become the biggest printing group in the Nordic countries today. What are the reasons for your business success?
In recent years we’ve optimised production by closing plants and consolidating our production activities to achieve economies of scale without losing capacity. Today we have a 40 percent market share in Sweden.

Printing groups are struggling all over Europe. How do you position your company to stay competitive?
We focus on consolidating the market and ensuring optimised production. Our size is an advantage in a declining, changing market.  As a one-stop shop, we have well developed procedures for logistics, distribution and other post-press services.

You claim to take your environmental responsibility seriously. What does that mean in terms of specific action?
We started our environmental journey early, with environmental assessments and continuous improvements, but we always encounter new challenges. By using a systematic approach over the years, we have been able to focus on important areas, such as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and energy consumption.

Environmental responsibility is a customer requirement today and an obligation for us. We seek to work effectively and develop production over time. One example is that we offer climate compensation and have several licences.

Is environmental responsibility a burden for further economic success or a catalyst?   
Environmental development is one of this generation’s biggest concerns, so it’s no coincidence that many companies focus on reducing footprints. We see an opportunity to meet market demand by calculating and declaring the environmental footprint left by our products.

On top of all your environmental efforts you have taken the decision to integrate myclimate/zeromission services in your portfolio. Why did you do this and do you have any targets in terms of climate-neutral printed materials?
The decision is based on a market demand here in the Nordic region. Meeting customer demands is our primary concern, and this relates well to our ambition to act more sustainably. We are actively trying to lower our environmental impact, and when customers are more involved this builds understanding and motivation to reduce our footprint. We recognise that all production has an impact, and this is our way of taking responsibility for it together with our customers.

About Zeromission
Since 2008 myclimate has run a partnership with the Swedish sustainability expert brand Zeromission. Zeromission just celebrated its 10th anniversary as one of Sweden’s leading companies offering consulting and solution services (amongst others, myclimate software solutions such as myclimate smart3) and voluntary offsetting in myclimate projects in Colombia, Uganda, India and Nicaragua. Since the beginning, 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂e have been calculated and offset by over 250 companies that ZeroMission has worked with, and more than 3,000 households are actively working for our climate thanks to these offsets. offsets.

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