It is the first time an employers' association and a trade union have joined forces to develop such a code, and now the work continues to make it an industry standard for the rest of Europe.

“In our experience more companies and customers start to make demands to the conditions, under which printed matters are produced. And we hope that the hidden values in responsible and sustainable graphic production become more visible with the code,” says Carsten Bøg, CSR and environmental manager from Graphic Association Denmark.

“In many other countries, there is no focus on problems with noise in production, lacking exhaust device, incorrect work positions, and use of solvents, where we for instance in Denmark uses vegetable oils,” says work environmental manager Mogens Nies from HK/Privat.

Both he and Carsten Bøg observed that from personal experience during a visit to a number of graphic companies abroad. In November 2012 GA and HK/Privat visited six Chinese printing houses that all produce books for Danish and other European publishing companies. Besides noise, use of dangerous washout solutions, and glue products there were also problems with lacking covering of machines, monotonous repeated work, and long work days.

The graphic CSR code has now been sent to the largest companies, publishing companies, ad agencies, and other customers of printed matters, and they are encouraged to make larger demands towards their graphic suppliers.

Companies can join the code by signing a special declaration of assent and with it assigning to the possibility of being controlled by a third part. See the whole code here: www.ga.dk/csr-english.