Environmental Pioneers

The De Vroede Group is setting the standard within the European envelope industry and is striving ahead with putting the environment at the forefront of our mission and philosophy. We have made major steps forward in reducing our carbon footprint from envelope printing, and these environmental improvements continue across all our operations. Our environmental philosophy goes a long way beyond the norm...

Solar Energy
Our new head office print facility in Belgium has been constructed with solar panels covering the entire roof surface. The solar energy which this creates provides all the power which we need to run our entire production facility, which houses over 40 envelope printing presses. The additional energy produced which we do not need is supplied back to the National Grid.

Underground Energy Sources
De Vroede derives energy directly from the earth's core, by pumping up hot water from 50m below the earth's surface. This water, which has a constant temperature of 22°C is passed through a heat exchanger and the energy created is used to keep our buildings warm in winter, and air conditioned in summer.

Tower Supplies will be moving to a new design and build facility in 2009, and alternative energy provision methods such as these will be incorporated into our plans.

FSC Certification
The De Vroede Group including Tower Supplies has recently achieved the FSC chain of custody certification, thereby supporting responsible use of forest resources worldwide. Tower Supplies actively promotes the use of enviromental envelopes in the marketplace.

Full range of environmental products
Tower Supplies supply a full range of environmental envelope products, including 100% Recycled envelopes (from 100% Post Consumer Waste and biodegradable corn starch window film.)

Printing Process-Vegetable Based Inks
Tower Supplies is reviewing all the consumables used as part of our printing process. Wherever possible, we are actively using consumables which are either natural or recycled. We have recently converted all our machines over to using only vegetable based inks, which are for more beneficial for the environment. The hybrid inks we use are soy based and contain no solvents.