The Sustainable Print Manifesto has announced that Canon has joined the initiative as a development partner, strengthening a growing coalition of industry leaders committed to making print more sustainable, alongside development partners Cimpress, Domino, Gallus, HP, Nazdar & Sun Chemical.
Launched in April 2025 at the FuturePrint Packaging, Labels & DTS Summit in Valencia last year, the Manifesto for More Sustainable Print set out a shared language for sustainable print and nine practical principles that businesses across the value chain can adopt, without added cost or complexity. As a Development Partner, Canon will take an active role in shaping the initiative’s next phase and supporting its adoption across the industry.
Canon is one of the world’s most recognized names in imaging and print technology, with a global presence across production, commercial and industrial print. Its involvement adds significant weight to a project built on collaboration across the entire print value chain.
‘We are delighted to welcome Canon as a Development Partner. Their expertise and global reach will help move the industry toward a shared, practical standard for sustainable print, which is exactly what this initiative was created to achieve,’ said Elena Knight, marketing & content director, FuturePrint – facilitating partner for the Sustainable Print Manifesto.
“Canon has a long-standing commitment to improving the sustainability of print, built on decades of expertise, innovation and close collaboration with customers across the industry. We are proud to support and contribute to an industry-wide framework that turns shared principles into practical, measurable improvements,” comments Martijn van Hoorn, senior vice president, R&D and head of sustainability steering committee, Canon Production Printing.
Canon joins a coalition of Development and Supporting Partners working together to drive meaningful, measurable progress across the industry, not through competition, but through alignment and shared standards.
The announcement comes as the Manifesto prepares to launch the next stage of its work, the Implementation Framework for More Sustainable Print, at the FuturePrint Packaging, Labels and DTS Summit in Valencia on 29 September 2026.
Implementation framework
The Sustainable Print Manifesto has earlier launched the Implementation Framework for More Sustainable Print at the FuturePrint Packaging, Labels and DTS Summit in Valencia, the same platform where 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, printers and PSPs 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 across the industry, 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, printers and PSPs 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’re inviting the whole industry to build it with us,’ said Elena Knight, marketing & 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 optimizing 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.
A collaborative initiative
The Manifesto and its Implementation Framework are the product of collaboration across the print value chain. The initiative’s Development Partners are Cimpress, HP, Gallus, Domino, Sun Chemical, Nazdar and Canon Group.
Its Supporting Partners are Bespoke, BPIF, IPIA, Lightning Tree, Printing United Alliance, SteveLister.com, The Pack Scout and VIGC, with FuturePrint as the Facilitating Partner.
The Framework was further shaped by valued contributors including CarbonQuota, CPI, Esko, Flint Group Digital Xeikon, Kavalan, Koenig & Bauer, Ricoh and TradePrint.
The initiative continues to gain traction across the industry. In the run-up to the launch, Manifesto representative Elena Knight was invited to join a panel at London Packaging Week on 17 September, /The Era of Static Packaging Is Over: Structure, Story, and Sustainability as One Design Language,’ hosted by AuraVeo, alongside Sandra Wagner (Koenig & Bauer) and Tom Stone (Bakkavör).
The conversation continues immediately after the Valencia launch, when sustainability expert Steve Lister takes a one-hour headline slot at the Sign & Print Show in Birmingham on Thursday 1 October. His presentation focuses on the Sustainable Print Manifesto and will introduce the newly launched Implementation Framework to a UK audience.
Together, these appearances reflect the growing appetite across the industry for a shared, practical approach to sustainable print, and the momentum building behind the Manifesto as it moves from principles to action.
