16/09/2026
Algae in the ink. Yes, really.
For the past few years, Baboró International Arts Festival for Children has been a project where we’ve been able to put new ideas around sustainable printing into practice.
In 2024, we worked with Baboró on a circular economy workshop with children at Claddagh National School. Their drawings went on to become posters displayed at the festival, while the Baboró programme became our first project to use the Carbon Balanced Paper Initiative.
In 2025, we continued the conversation with Baboró’s Children’s Panel, looking at how the circular economy can work in the real world.
This year, for Baboró’s 30th anniversary, we decided to bring that thinking directly into the print by trialling Living Ink Technologies’ algae-based black ink in the 2026 programme.
So, how does algae end up in ink?
Living Ink intercepts algae residue from other production processes that would otherwise become waste. This is converted into biochar and used as the pigment in the ink, replacing traditional fossil fuel-based carbon black.
It’s a simple idea with some big potential.
The algae ink was used alongside our existing Sun Chemical SunLit Diamond inks, which are around 78% vegetable oil-based and have strong sustainability credentials of their own.
The results were really exciting. The algae-based black worked incredibly well alongside the other colours, showing real potential as an alternative to traditional carbon black ink.
Algae ink has been trialled at iSupply for many months, and after years of working with Baboró on circular economy and sustainable printing, their 30th anniversary programme seemed like the perfect opportunity to showcase the solution at this scale.
The next step is working with Living Ink Technologies to understand how the use of algae ink can be developed further.
A huge thank you to Living Ink Technologies, Devon Murrie, Fiona Davies and Baboró International Arts Festival for Children. It’s been a pleasure to work alongside people developing new possibilities for more sustainable print.
