printconnect (00:00.0)
Hello and welcome back to Print Connect, the podcast where we explore the ideas, people and technologies shaping the future of specialist printing. 

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Today's conversation focuses on one of the most important and often complex challenges facing our industry, sustainability. 

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But rather than talking about it in abstract terms, we're looking at how sustainability can become practical, collaborative, and actionable for print businesses of all sizes. I'm joined by Carlos Louth, Head of Industrial Print Sustainability Strategy at HP and one of the contributors behind the Sustainable Print Manifesto, a global technology agnostic framework designed to help the print industry move forward together. The manifesto brings people 

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organisations and regions into a shared conversation about responsibility, transparency and long-term progress 

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In this episode, we'll explore why sustainability has reached a tipping point for print, how collaboration can drive real change and how businesses can turn principles into meaningful action. 

printconnect (01:04.653)
Carlos, it's great to have you on. Welcome to the show. Sustainability has become one of the defining topics for the print industry. From your perspective, why has this conversation reached such a critical point now? 

Carlos Lahoz (01:18.019)
Well, first thanks for having me. Now I think it's combination of several reasons why we are now moving into this topic. One is there's a tsunami of regulations that are coming, especially in Europe, that are impacting print in many different ways, from packaging to materials to recyclability, all these aspects. 

Carlos Lahoz (01:48.261)
are adding pressure for compliance to every company of the print value chain. Then also the external factors, geopolitics. There are quite some tensions around sustainability, which is having also this reaction approach to some of the pushback that we seeing from some parties. So reaction response, it's another reason. 

Carlos Lahoz (02:16.555)
The third one is because we've simply met the right people. We started to share our worries, our interest to doing more with the value chain of print and we found people that wanted to do more. And with these leaders are the ones that really helped shape this initiative, this framework for sustainable print. 

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Now, the Sustainable Print Manifesto is positioned as a shared framework for the industry. Was this the original motivation behind creating it? 

Carlos Lahoz (02:51.448)
When we started talking to different companies, what we realized is that every step in the print value chain, from materials to then the technology providers to the printers themselves, the brands, the retailers, were looking at sustainability of print from a different perspective. And there were sometimes some vested interests. I'm defending my perspective because I want to push my product that is 

Carlos Lahoz (03:20.322)
compostable, but then the printers talk about technologies and efficiency, and then the brands are looking for something that they can sell to consumers about recyclability or whatever. So the lack of a common and agreed definition of which is the best way to produce a print in a more sustainable way created confusion in the value chain when we were talking to each other. 

Carlos Lahoz (03:49.368)
And then also in the end it was penalizing progress because if everybody is working in a different direction or pushing in a different direction, in the end the net result is lower. And I'm not saying that the print industry has not progressed. So there's been lots of progress on making print more sustainable, but we believe there's a lot more to do. now the moment is that the next thing... 

Carlos Lahoz (04:14.921)
the next type of things that we need to address requires collaboration. And so this is the fundamental motivation we believe that by collaborating, by sharing, by creating the shared definition of how to make print more sustainable, we improve two things. One is the communication across the value chain end to end. And then we can talk the same language. And the second one is also this innovation, focusing the innovation effort. 

Carlos Lahoz (04:44.458)
in towards a shared goal that will accelerate progress. 

printconnect (04:49.296)
So yeah, you mentioned it there collaboration. It's one of the manifestos core messages. Why is this collective approach so important when tackling sustainability in print? 

Carlos Lahoz (05:01.885)
Yeah, because in the end there are many decision makers when you are doing a print design and let's take packaging, is one of the complex examples. There are many steps in the value chain. The material manual, the material that, first the design, you start from the design, from the design that you do, the materials that you use, then how you produce the technologies that you use. 

Carlos Lahoz (05:29.777)
and how you manage your whole supply chain with the different inventories, retailers, co-packers, and then how you put it into the market and then how you recycle at the end eventually. So all these long chain of decisions that are taking in the print value chain and options is what we're trying to at least provide this common frame. 

printconnect (05:55.472)
The manifesto focuses on guiding principles rather than rigid rules. How should print businesses translate those principles into practical action? 

Carlos Lahoz (06:07.336)
Well, first the manifesto took a while to be developed because we had to agree with companies that were starting from different perspectives and different angles. So this is why to get a common agreement or a common set of principles that we all agree has left the principles to a pretty high level definition because this is what we all agree. Then each of the businesses will need to 

Carlos Lahoz (06:37.565)
To bring it down to the specific needs. If I am a material manufacturer, then I have to read it from my perspective and then translate it to something more meaningful for me. This is how the manifesto it is today. It's true that the manifesto is designed as something that is a living project. So the intent moving forward, now we have version one, but the intent moving forward is precisely going to the next level of detail. We have this grid. 

Carlos Lahoz (07:06.865)
set of principles and then what we want to work with the working group is, okay, let's select one of the applications publishing or labels or general commercial printing and then deep dive to the next level of details on how to measure, which are the KPIs, how to measure on the different principles. But today we have version one and with version one it's already a workable framework. 

Carlos Lahoz (07:35.955)
this exercise of bringing it to your specific need, to your specific business, it's up to each of the companies. And again, it's for each of the companies of the value chain. So the brands will read and use the manifesto, the printers will read and use the manifesto, the printer manufacturers and ink manufacturers have something to do as well. So everyone has their view on the manifesto. 

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Now in the manifesto, you talk about data driven decisions. 

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You also speak about transparency and life cycle thinking. Where does data sit within that and how important are data driven decisions in turning these shared principles into a measurable progress? 

Carlos Lahoz (08:20.227)
Yeah, so we talk a lot about collaboration and a very long value chain of print. When we say collaboration is what we do, but then how we do it is data. Data is the language. When a supplier needs to talk to a customer, they need to talk through data. And this is key. And it's different now to what it was a few years ago. In the past, when... 

Carlos Lahoz (08:48.002)
When I was buying from a supplier, I was looking at their sustainability slogans and the messages. But this is not valid anymore. So I need the data because these slogans, we know all the greenwashing problems that sustainability had in the past years. Now we are beyond. 

Carlos Lahoz (09:13.324)
beyond the slogans, are in the AI era, we are in the data era. This is the language that we need to use to collaborate. So this is fundamental. the problem with sustainability is that we are still lacking standards on what is what we need to measure and how we need to measure. So these are the two things that we're still lacking. And the manifesto provides 

Carlos Lahoz (09:43.2)
definition of areas and as I was saying, what we expect is that both the standards, the standards organizations, the companies and so are using those areas to define the necessary standards for measuring the KPIs and the comparison. 

printconnect (10:03.617)
And so that data will change and transform over time to adapt with the manifesto. 

Carlos Lahoz (10:11.756)
Exactly. I'm the data having an end to end full data transparency across the print value chain will take years and years and I'm thinking 15 years. So it's 2040 will have a real fully transparent supply chain. But this doesn't mean that we don't start today because data is what we need to use to take decisions. So I refer to it as a low fidelity data. We need to start. 

Carlos Lahoz (10:41.259)
sharing data, even if it's not the best, if it's not 100 % accurate data, it's good enough to start making the right choices and helping us direct in the right direction. So I think data will start from more assumptions, a lot of assumptions and so that starts to guide the industry and will evolve on the accuracy and the accessibility and the shareability in the next few years. 

Carlos Lahoz (11:08.522)
But clearly it's an idea that every company needs to track and invest because it's what it's now guiding all the decisions. 

printconnect (11:17.128)
And the companies that are currently involved now and the 

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collaborators that are involved now and anyone that wants to join in the future, will they have a say and be able to contribute to this kind of data, which then starts to shape the manifesto going forward? 

Carlos Lahoz (11:32.564)
Yes, definitely. So it's not my project. It's not an HP project. It's a collaborative project that is built by everyone. In fact, now we have in January the next meeting that is going to be shaping what we do next once we manage to get to converse to these principles. So there are two ways of engaging with the manifesto. One is access the web page and read the principles. 

Carlos Lahoz (12:01.405)
And if you believe in those principles, if you share these beliefs and you want to adopt them and commit to them, this is the first step. We call it pledge. And then you can pledge to those principles if you share those principles and commit to consider and to take action on them. The second level of engagement is to join the working groups. And for that, we have also a contact us section where you just... 

Carlos Lahoz (12:29.768)
to meet the interest to participate and what we are looking is for action oriented people that is really willing to move this initiative forward in regards to understanding the data, to understanding the next level of detail that we want to put in the end to help the industry make it more sustainable. 

printconnect (12:51.201)
And so this is something that you're driving personally. What is HP's involvement within the manifesto? 

Carlos Lahoz (13:02.899)
Yeah, it's been recognized for our sustainability commitment for years, both at corporate level, but also in the industrial print business. And what we have been working for years, it's on making better products, better processes to reduce the impacts of print. A few years ago, 

Carlos Lahoz (13:30.079)
we started to realize that our efforts alone were not enough. In the case of HP, that we are a technology provider, we have limited control on the materials that our customers purchase to produce the print, on the efficiency of the products and the inventories and the waste that is generated across the print value chain. So we didn't have a lot of control in those areas. So if we really wanted, as part of our 

Carlos Lahoz (14:00.07)
ambition. We are in the print industry, we want to reduce the impact of the print industry, not only on HP. Then this is why our strategy quickly pushes us out. We will continue developing better printers and better rings that are more efficient and that are more circular, but we want to engage with our customers to help them as the next step in the value chain. 

Carlos Lahoz (14:26.62)
And for that we have a separate program, it's the Sustainability Amplifier Program that is helping our customers advance on sustainability. But then we had the next level of ambition, which is, OK, it's not only our customers, it's the whole print value chain, the brands, the material manufacturers, the recyclers. So this is where we started socializing the concept of this manifesto with some of the companies. And yeah, we got... 

Carlos Lahoz (14:55.431)
We got excited about it. We thought that we could do a contribution to the industry and really make the print industry a more sustainable one. So this is why we jumped straight to the project and this is why others have done the same. I think it's an exciting project that can make a difference. 

printconnect (15:16.523)
Now, there's a shift from seeing sustainability as a compliance issue to rather seeing it as a business driver. How are you seeing sustainability influence innovation and competitiveness? 

Carlos Lahoz (15:31.313)
Yes, and this dilemma has always been there. I've been close to 15 years in sustainability. And it's been there since I started on the topic. I think it's a matter of time horizons. Sustainability in principle. 

Carlos Lahoz (15:59.749)
Sustainability is understood as something that is more efficient, that uses less material and less energy, that uses materials that are renewable, that then are more abundant. If we reuse the material and extend the life, all these drivers for sustainability in the end go in the direction of making things more efficient from a cost perspective, from a material use perspective. 

Carlos Lahoz (16:27.616)
if they are more expensive today, it's because we still haven't innovated. We are not smart enough to have the right process and material to make it economically viable. But we will, because this is what we are seeing. There are new materials that become more affordable that now are equal or even cheaper than previous materials. It's a matter of innovating. 

Carlos Lahoz (16:57.135)
and also time, so the scale comes up. So there will be niches. There are niches where sustainability today is more efficient. But if we are all aligned to innovating in the right direction, this will quickly become more more mainstream. And again, customers are not willing to pay more for sustainable products. So we will need to work towards having products that are 

Carlos Lahoz (17:26.894)
more sustainable at same price. 

printconnect (17:31.178)
Now looking ahead, you spoke earlier about having a strong data set by 2040. What would success look like for this sustainable print manifesto in the future and how can businesses listening today get involved? 

Carlos Lahoz (17:49.412)
Yeah, so my aspiration is that this is internalized. These principles are internalized and adopted and used as a frame for all the companies in the print value chain to align and to progress sustainability for print. If we get people understanding those principles and really 

Carlos Lahoz (18:18.217)
using those principles to take the decisions of what they do, this will create a very significant impact on the industry. So this is my ambition, that everyone knows it, relates it and commits to take action based on this framework. How I see success moving forward for the specific manifesto, besides raising awareness and education of the industry. 

Carlos Lahoz (18:45.966)
is getting more people engaged also in the working groups, in helping us work on the next level of detail about how to measure which data is required, what are the gaps, where the technology or the knowledge is not there and we need to work together to develop. It could even become a reference for regulators, that today regulators are getting input from 

Carlos Lahoz (19:15.521)
from different parts of the value chain. And again, sometimes with these vested interests, what we want is to have a common voice that it represents the whole value chain. And this is not something that exists today. So this could be the areas of work that we will have ahead. But again, this is what I think, as I was saying on January, we're having the working group meeting to decide what we do next. 

Carlos Lahoz (19:45.021)
But this is the general lines that we've been discussing for the past months in how to get engaged. the end there's webpage, is sustainable-print-manifesto.com where they can see the manifesto itself, read the principles, review their beliefs of the working groups and all the people endorsing it. And then you can pledge if you believe on those principles, 

Carlos Lahoz (20:14.572)
if you want to use them as a reference for your specific company and then contact us. Again, we're looking for people, it's not a marketing initiative. We want action-oriented people that really helps develop the knowledge, develop the alignment and the data to really make progress in this topic. 

printconnect (20:42.577)
manifesto is a starting point and not a finished solution. 

Carlos Lahoz (20:47.18)
It's a living thing, it will evolve, it will grow. also, technology and knowledge are not static. So we will follow the evolution of the industry. 

printconnect (21:02.347)
Carlos, thank you so much for joining me. I think what comes through clearly from talking to you is that sustainability doesn't have to be abstract or overwhelming. When it's approached collaboratively and backed by data, as we spoke about, grounded in real world decisions, it actually becomes something practical and achievable for the industry. We'll be back soon with more conversations and more voices shaping the future of specialist printing. 

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Until next time, take care and stay inspired.