The mission of Inkworks Press is to provide the community groups, non-profits, movement organizations, collectives and green businesses with the highest quality green printing at an affordable price.
We seek to collaborate with our customers to achieve the best results possible with limited budgets. Over 35 years of professional consultations stand as evidence of our ability to produce lasting results. For us, sustainability begins with building relationships of trust.
As a worker-run printshop Inkworks has always maintained the highest standards of safe operation of equipment and of chemical use. And from our founding we have conserved resources to reduce waste so as not to pass on unnecessary costs to our customers and to limit our contribution to the waste stream.
When New Leaf Paper Company introduced the best recycled papers, we partnered with them by stocking a complete line for our environmentally conscious customers.
Recycled papers entered the market in the 80’s and Inkworks quickly established a relationship with a true pioneer in the field – Conservatree Papers. Conservatree no longer sells paper, but continues to be the best resource center for paper issues. The earliest recycled sheets were somewhat problematic and in some cases needed testing to run efficiently on our presses. We know of no commercial printer who so generously donated many hours of production time to aid in the manufacture of recycled papers.
Given this background it was only natural for us to seek certification when Alameda County, where Berkeley is located, established their innovative program. We where awarded a Green Business certification in January, 2002. To meet the standards demanded by this program we where inspected for “Best Practices” by the following agencies: Bay Area Air Quality Management District, City of Berkeley, East Bay Municipal Utility District, and the East Bay Small Business Development Center.
This award for sustainable operations demonstrates, in a verifiable way, our concern for the environment. But Inkworks exceeds these standards on many fronts:
- We use vegetable oil-based inks and have eliminated isopropanol (IPA) from our press fountain solution. IPA is a significant source of air polluting volatile organic compounds (VOC).
- All our house sheets exceed the Federal standards for post-consumer waste content. We stock all New Leaf papers.
- In addition, our house papers are processed chlorine-free. Chlorine is an extremely toxic by-product of traditional paper milling and a major polluter of our environment. A by-product, dioxin, is classified as a carcinogen.
- Our house sheets are affordable in all grades: writing, text and cover.
For us sustainable practices are not a “marketing tool” but one aspect of how we have always functioned, internally and in our community. Inkworks was a “mission driven” enterprise a generation before this term came into general use. Our founding members saw the use of printing technology as a tool to build a community of resistance and solidarity along with a viable enterprise.
Today the greed and short-sightedness of global corporations makes the best case for creating a new world based on life-serving, sustainable values. To this end, Inkworks strives in its practices and policies to maintain the highest standards of integrity in its business practices.
To learn more about Inkworks and the community of worker-run enterprises in the Bay Area you can view online the documentary “Democracy In the Workplace.”
