By Vilimaina Naqelevuki, Fiji Times – 8 March 2020

STAR Printery is no stranger when it comes to being an environmentally-friendly business.

Company director Sandeep Chauhan said his firm began making informed choices on how they could run their business in a sustainable and environmentally-safer manner about a decade ago.

He said beginning in 2011, the company started making changes on products used within the business.

“We had already started making changes in our organisation many years ago,” he said.

“We were part of Earth Hour, we were also making changes constantly on the raw materials which had credentials from environmentally-certified industries.

“So we had already started making those changes from 2011-2012.

“We started with initiatives like all of our inks being vegetable oil-based, no other printing company in the country does that.

“Although this comes at a higher price, we ventured down that path because we firmly believe in it.”

Mr Chauhan said the company knew there would be costs involved with the pro-environment changes being made.

“We started changing to green chemicals, it’s like when you wash your hands with liquid soap you don’t have an issue when it washes down the sink because the soap you use is biodegradable.

“We have started doing those sorts of changes about eight–nine years ago so this fitted in well with the sort of changes that we were doing now with the move to paper-based products.”