Royal opening highlights historic working partnership

A successful 60-year business link between working partners in Reading and London will be symbolically reaffirmed by the opening of a new £2 million St. John Ambulance distribution centre in Peterborough by HRH The Princess Royal on July 16.

It was fitting that Thames Valley printing company Lamport Gilbert was one of the first to congratulate St. John Ambulance on completion of its new purpose-built national distribution centre in Peterborough – Lamport Gilbert has been working with St. John Ambulance Supplies since the middle of the last century.

The Reading-based firm has grown and developed with the St. John Ambulance Supplies network, which now provides state-of-the art worldwide distribution of its 6,000-plus products. Lamport Gilbert prints the majority of St. John Ambulance product, training and service support documentation.

St. John Ambulance Supplies also entrusts Lamport Gilbert with the storage and supply of more than 70-tonnes of their various printed materials – held in an online stock-order system Lamport Gilbert devised especially for them.

“As long-time working partners we are delighted to congratulate St. John Ambulance Supplies on relocating its London and regional warehousing to its new single-site product distribution centre in Peterborough,” said Charles Day, sales director of Lamport Gilbert.


“It will be wonderful for St. John Ambulance Supplies to get its entire product stock in one location, since this can only benefit efficiency and performance for its suppliers and international customers alike.

“We like to think that St. John Ambulance Supplies has also benefited over the past 60 years by getting its entire printing requirements from one location!”

Account manager Bob Sym will represent Lamport Gilbert at the distribution centre official opening by HRH The Princess Royal, Commandant in Chief of St John Ambulance, the UK's leading First Aid charity. Bob has been handling the needs of St. John Ambulance Supplies for the past 27 years.

“Our relationship with Lamport Gilbert is based on a professional trust created through their long-term continuity of performance, quality and value,“ explained Stephen English, general manager of St. John Supplies. “Throughout the years Lamport Gilbert has taken as much care with our printing jobs as we would an injured person.”

Lamport Gilbert is one of the few printers in the country working to the environmental management standard ISO 14001, and will no doubt be a supportive ‘old-friend’ as St. John Ambulance Supplies progresses towards the achievement of its own ISO 14001 environmental accreditation status and future sustainability plans.

Enduring links and heritage go hand in hand for the two organisations. Lamport Gilbert, one of the Thames Valley’s oldest printing firms, proudly celebrated its own centenary with the turn of the millennium. St. John Ambulance is slightly older, having a long and detailed history dating back over 900 years to “The Crusades”

Lamport Gilbert and The Carbon Trust

Reading-based Lamport Gilbert provides print solutions to businesses around the UK specialising in the charities market. The company has made a conscious policy decision to ensure that care of the environment is a key consideration in all of its work practices, processes and methods of operation. Driven by Peter Smith, Group MD, and the Directors and Managers, the company has a dedicated 'Environmental Team' which is constantly reviewing its processes and procedures in order to improve the environmental policy.
In order to measure and examine the impact of its activities, Lamport looked to the Carbon Trust to provide a carbon survey which highlighted where it could eliminate or reduce the carbon emissions released into the environment, as well as to reduce its energy spend. On the Carbon Trust’s recommendation, Lamport Gilbert made the following energy management improvements:
To install Passive Infrared Sensor (PIR) lighting across the factory and office to avoid unnecessary electricity use.
To replace inefficient fluorescent bulbs with efficient T5 adapters.
To set software controls on office PC's and laptops to hibernate machines left idle.
To run an internal awareness campaign to encourage staff to switch off lighting and PCs when not in use.
To conduct an electricity audit to pinpoint and reduce energy demand during expensive peaks, thereby enabling placing the factory in a more cost-effective energy band with their supplier.
To introduce an environmental procurement strategy, which resulted in the purchase of a press, requiring approximately 50 per cent less power than an alternative machine.
Resulting environmental achievements include:

Reduction of annual energy costs in the Reading site by between £8,000 to £10,000 since the Carbon Trust survey in March 2008.
An annual energy reduction of between 14 per cent and 17 per cent.
Saving 26 tonnes of carbon dioxide, which translates to a reduction of approximately 10% on the company’s carbon footprint.
Reducing levels of Isopropanol (IPA) across both sites and Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) emissions, with a long term plan to eliminate the use of IPA altogether within its printing processes.
Using environmentally-friendly vegetable-based inks and water-based coatings.
Reducing landfill by 70% by improving dry waste streams, and the recycling of paper, printing plates, ink cartridges, pallets and plastic.
Cutting water use on the plate setter by 50%.
Purchasing two LPG vehicles across the group to minimise transport emissions.

The Pinnacle of Environmental Management

The EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (that's a bit of a mouthfull) is better known as EMAS, thank goodness that's a bit easier to manage.

What is It - it's a voluntary market based instrument designed to encourage better envoronmental performance from all sorts of organisations. Currently only a handful of UK companies have achieved this level.

Completely compatible with IS0 14001 but requiring better performance, employee involvement, legal compliance and communication with stakeholders.

EMAS also requires companies to produce an independently verified report of their performance. In a recent guide by "The Print Business" it showed over 500 companies listed with more than half accredited to IS0 14001, but only 8 companies accredited to EMAS.

Why am i talking about this? - We have decided at Lamport Gilbert that this must be our next goal after ISO14001 and so a working party has been called together to drive this through our business.

Why EMAS? - It provides us with a quality label for voluntary environmental management, internal efficiency, environmental communication and transparency.

EMAS is a badge of credibilty, it is clear and verifiable.

EMAS provides a framework for setting targets, measuring, monitoring and reporting on performance.

I will be giving you regular updates on our progress. In the meantime if you need any further information please call and i'll give all the help i can, look forward to speaking to you.

Halloween Point of Sale

One of our clients wanted to promote some of their snack products in the period up to Halloween last year (2007).

Lamport Gilbert designed a range of images to be used on their Point-of-Sale and Point-of Purchase units, so successfull was this promotion we have been invited to repeat the trick this year.

With the headline Great Deals for Less we produced a striking Pumpkin and Bats image which struck a chord with adults and children alike.

Look out for them soon in Esso outlets.

FSC and PEFC - a Perspective.

Lamport Gilbert consider their responsibility to the environment very seriously and as part of our environmental policy have gained both FSC & PEFC Chain of Custody. The following small report gives some background information the FSC and PEFC Forest Certification Programmes and how using recycled papers and materials from sustainable sources can help our environment.

The Environment
Issues such as quality, price and service have always been regarded as key considerations for us and our customers, however more recently there has been growing concern regarding the materials used for manufacture, their impact on the environment and the requirement to maintain the integrity of these products throughout the supply chain.

Many organisations are becoming more aware of Environmentally Friendly Products (EFP) and their Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) to the environment. Our customers are now frequently asking questions on issues such as the source of raw materials, the credentials of the supplier, the availability of EFPs, the standards accredited to these products and what claims and statements they can make when using them.

Does Recycling Paper Help the Environment?
Recycling paper helps the environment in a number of ways. It reduces the amount of waste paper going to landfill and rubbish dumps, reducing the number of landfill sites we need. It also reduces the amount of natural resources needed to produce paper. Recycled paper does not use wood and the process of making paper from recycled pulp uses fewer resources such as fossil fuels and water.

Why Certify Forests?
Consumers, public and enterprise procurement policies in increasing numbers are seeking evidence of environmentally sound business practices. The most effective way to guarantee that the timber and paper products you sell come from legal and
sustainable sources is by sourcing them from independently certified forests. This is where PEFC and FSC can help you.

The Certification Programmes
There are two main forestry certification programmes, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
The FSC is an international network to promote responsible management of the world’s forests. FSC has developed a system of forest certification that allows consumers to identify wood and wood based products from well-managed forests. To date, 78 million hectares of forest in 82 countries are certified to FSC standards
and with the FSC ‘tick-tree’ logo, it is probably the most widely recognised brand.

Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC)
The Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) is an independent, non-profit, non governmental organisation founded in 1999 which provides a framework for mutual recognition of national forest certification schemes across the world. PEFC currently covers over 200 million hectares of forest producing millions of tonnes of certified timber to the market place making it the world’s largest certification scheme.

There are few differences between the two schemes, except to say that the amount of forest covered by the PEFC is approximately 2.5 times that covered by FSC. This is because the PEFC is a global umbrella for the assessment and recognition of 32 different national forest certification systems awarded through independent third party certification.

In December 2006, the UK Government confirmed that the PEFC sustainable forest management certification provided an assurance that its certified timber-based products originated from legal and sustainable sources.

Chain of Custody
Any company carrying out material alteration to FSC or PEFC material and want this to be identified as a certified product, need to gain Chain of Custody certification. Chain of Custody provides evidence that products originate from well managed forests and verifies that these products are not mixed with products from uncertified forests at any point in the supply chain. This evidence is provided by FSC or PEFC registration.

The Process & Implications
The process involved for an organisation to obtain FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody is relatively straight forward but extremely important. Systems and procedures need to be put in place to prove that we can separate products produced using certified materials throughout the manufacturing process. This will involve labelling certified material, identifying certified products on all paperwork for example estimates, job tickets, delivery notes, box labels and invoices. In order to do this, we are working with our management information system provider to help us facilitate this process.

There are a number of certification bodies (110 in the UK), many of which are able to audit organisations for FSC and PEFC, however we have found out that BM TRADA are the only UK certification body who can offer an organisation both PEFC and FSC Chain of Custody in one audit.

Corporate and Social Responsibility
As a company, we have a key responsibility to the environment. Following this process gives us and our customers the satisfaction that we are using raw material from a sustainable source, and also enables us to provide proof of this and to promote it.

Colour Management

A complete colour management solution is now in place across our sister companies.

We have been working with Heidelberg Graphic Equipment Ltd within their Axis colour control software.

Our aim is to cross calibrate colour standards, between the pre press department and the printing press. This will give a standardised product that can be monitored on line, to a recognised ISO standard.

This ensures and enables a number of key functions

- Axis colour control has been installed on both CD presses. This gives us the ability to scan running sheets to ensure colour consistency from the beginning to the end of the print run.

- Axis colour control is profiled to the ISO 12647-2 industry Print Colour Standard. This is the industry recognised colour standard.

- CIP3 information is sent to both printing presses containing ink usage and duct settings for faster make readies. This results in faster colour correctness and reduced waste paper coming off the presses, at the set up stage.

- Dot gain curves on both CTP output devices enable us to produce plates on either site to conform to the ISO 12647-2 dot gain tolerances on press.

- ICC Colour profiles on both the Lamport Gilbert and Blackmore proofing devices, provide consistent press match proofs across the group.

- Monitor calibration in place to give press likeness on screen

Point of Sale Gathering

A recent visitor to Lamport Gilbert was asking about the production of "Point of Sale" material.

We were able to show him a range of items we have produced for a wide range of customers, and while we had them all in one place we took this photograph.

Our experience in handling this sort of work goes across many companies and sectors, including forecourt, Pubs and Restaurants.

Our creative team work very closely with the client and ensure the item not only works in creative terms but the phsyical size is suitable for its environment and the materials suit the location its to appear in.