Climate Neutral Printing House

Over the past decades, our housing in Amersfoort has grown organically. With the purchase of adjacent plots, expansion could take place step by step. However, from a process technology and energy perspective, this was not optimal. With the new construction of ‘WILCO, the Clean Climate Neutral Printing House’ at Vanadiumweg 2 in Amersfoort, we have taken a major step towards realising our sustainability ambitions. Through innovative design, a single air-conditioned production environment has been created, in which air humidity, temperature and ventilation are properly controlled. This results in the gas-free and energy-efficient operation of a professional offset printing works with substantial energy savings of approximately 690,000 Nm3 Ae per annum, which corresponds to over 1,300 tonnes of CO2 per year.

On 1 February 2022, the Clean Climate Neutral Printing House was put into operation. All processes take place here, including warehouse storage of paper, CtP plate manufacturing, sheet-fed offset printing, folding and stitching of book blocks. The building at Vanadiumweg 9 is equipped for all bindery activities relating to books and magazines, as well as dispatch. With the definitive closure of the Wilco Meppel BV location on 31 December 2021, there is less intercompany movement of goods. The production technical personnel who moved from Meppel to Amersfoort generate, in principle, more home-to-work travel. Wilco organises collective transport for this purpose from Meppel using our own company vehicles. And we continue onwards… we shall investigate whether a new sustainable bindery can be realised in Amersfoort in the coming years. This involves the planned demolition of the buildings at Vanadiumweg 8 and Nijverheidsweg-Noord 71, followed by new construction planned for 2024 and 2025.

Clean Climate Neutral Printing House

  • High-quality insulation of the external shell.
  • Floor cooling and heating with ground source energy system and heat pumps.
  • Heat recovery.
  • Elevated heat buffer, fed by excess heat from machinery.
  • Energy-efficient LED space lighting.
  • Building management system.
  • Low-chemistry computer-to-plate.