Sustainable Print Manifesto launches implementation framework to turn sustainable best practice into commercial opportunity

Print Solutions Green Solutions

The Sustainable Print Manifesto has launched the ‘Implementation Framework for More Sustainable Print’.

The Sustainable Print Manifesto was unveiled in April 2025.

Where the manifesto established a shared definition of sustainable print through nine universal principles, the Implementation Framework for More Sustainable Print takes a very important next step: it turns those principles into practical actions, a common set of indicators to measure against, and a maturity model that lets any business see where it stands and what to do next. In doing so, it enables OEMs, technology providers, and printers to demonstrate meaningful progress to brands and buyers, differentiate their offering and turn improved sustainability performance into commercial opportunity.

Developed collaboratively with leading brands, retailers and partners, the framework is designed to be practical and adaptable. It deliberately avoids prescribing specific technologies or materials, instead offering a common foundation that each organisation can apply to its own circumstances, whatever its size, sector or stage of maturity. It provides a common pathway through what has until now been a complex and fragmented sustainability landscape, giving businesses greater clarity around what to measure, what action to take and how to communicate their progress.

‘The first Manifesto established what more sustainable print looks like. The Framework now enables OEMs, technology providers, and printers to demonstrate meaningful progress to their customers in a shared language. That matters because becoming more sustainable shouldn’t simply be an obligation – it should also make businesses more attractive to the brands and buyers they want to work with. But this is a platform, not a full stop. The work continues, and we are inviting the whole industry to build it with us,’ said Elena Knight, marketing and content director, FuturePrint, Facilitating Partner for the Sustainable Print Manifesto.

At the heart of the framework is a simple belief: progress beats perfection. Rather than demanding that businesses do everything at once, it meets them wherever they are and shows them the next step, from measuring for the first time, through actively managing improvements, to optimising and sharing data across the value chain.

The framework arrives as the print and packaging industry faces growing pressure from tightening regulation, rising customer expectations and the move toward item level transparency through initiatives such as Digital Product Passports (DPP).

By aligning the industry around a shared understanding of sustainable best practice and a common approach to measuring progress, the framework aims to make sustainability easier for every stakeholder in the print value chain, including brands and print buyers to understand and assess. The longer term ambition is to establish a common approach across the print value chain, helping genuine sustainability progress to be recognised and rewarded commercially. The Partners also believe this will help reduce the fragmentation and greenwashing that hold progress back.

The manifesto and its implementation framework are the product of collaboration across the print value chain.

The Implementation Framework for More Sustainable Print is available to read at www.sustainable-print-manifesto.com.