At the Banknote & Currency Conference in February, Swiss substrate manufacturer Landqart revealed new research it has been carrying out on how to dispose of banknotes at the end of their life in an environmentally sound way.

Across industry publications, conferences and reporting, sustainability now sits alongside other key topics such as security, technical excellence, efficiency, value for money etc. This industry has done a great deal of work and made a real difference in its operations across the key areas where it affects the environment.

Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Refurbish and Recycle are the five widely-accepted elements of a circular economy. This article from CCL Secure covers three of them.

The UK’s Royal Mint has announced plans to build a new plant in Llantrisant, South Wales, to recover gold from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE).

The Swiss National Bank has conducted a Life Cycle Analysis on its 9th series of banknotes. The study looked only at those elements of the life cycle directly under the control of the SNB, the manufacture, wholesale distribution and disposal of notes.

According to Giesecke+Devrient, the sustainability revolution has accelerated to embrace an ever-growing range of environmental and social issues.

Optical security feature and foil manufacturer KURZ has published a report – Communication on Progress – which presents the company’s sustainability performance to date in detail and also discusses its goals and plans.

De La Rue has recently submitted targets to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, consistent with limiting global temperature increases to no more than 1.5°C.

In Russia and in Ukraine people have turned to cash, with large queues at bank branches and ATMs. The National Bank of Ukraine enacted a temporary cash withdrawal limit of 100,000 Ukrainian hryvnia per day — the equivalent of about $3,339 – and both countries have imposed capital controls.

One of the major challenges facing every business today is to operate sustainably. But it’s not enough simply to have a stack of policies, fine words, and good intentions to hand. Actions need to demonstrate that the policies are being put into action.