Do You Need To Spend Green To Be Green?

Certainly, there are multiple benefits to being perceived as green. There is even evidence that in the long run, at least, it is good for the bottom line. But we live in the short run, and the pressure to achieve sustainability typically runs downhill from the power retailers and CPG brands to display producers, packaging vendors, material suppliers and component manufacturers. One display designer complained at a P-O-P Times seminar in late 2007: "Everyone talks about sustainability. But everything seems to cost about 20% more. And everyone wants to stick us with the bill." Is he right about the cost premium? Not necessarily. "If you look at the entire life cycle of a display or a package, including the savings from using materials that can be re-used or recycled, cost is really not a factor," says Alexander Isley, creative director of Alexander Isley Associates, Redding, Conn. "For example, we tend to use mechanical fasteners instead of adhesives whenever possible so it is easier to separate different materials and reuse or recycle them when the display is broken down."Joseph Pettipas, vice president and director-retail/hospitality for HOK, an architectural and display design firm located in Toronto, agrees: "Designing and building display vehicles that are multi-dimensional and that can be repurposed is one key to reducing the cost differential impact. Increasingly, the premium for sustainable construction materials is becoming less and less as demand for and use of them continues to gain momentum."Sustainable Materials"Sustainability is made up of many factors," says Brian Hart, vice president of marketing at Ivey Imaging, a Seattle-based display producer with expertise in digital signage. "In order to really achieve sustainability, it is first necessary to do some research. Most companies, for example, are not at either extreme end of the sustainability curve, but somewhere in the middle. You need to do some sort of baseline test to determine exactly where that is before you can decide exactly where you want to be."Hart feels that too many companies want to make huge jumps to sustainability instead of slow moves from bad to better. "Before replacing any of the materials we use in the design and construction of our displays, for example, we created a filter to determine whether or not a product should really be considered sustainable," he says. Once the filter was set up, Ivey then used it to conduct a supply chain audit. "We leveraged our supplier base to build an 'In-Store Sustainability Kit.' We offer it to our customers and prospects through our website as part of our continuing commitment to be a thought leader in our industry with regard to environmental solutions."Internally, Ivey verifies all environmental claims regarding raw materials by requesting sufficient testing data. "We also continually measure our progress on environmental issues and are constantly developing new methods and techniques for renewing, reusing or recycling all of the materials we use," he says. "In fact, we consider ourselves to be environmental consultants as much as display suppliers."Does this produce sticker shock when it comes to the cost of manufacturing a sustainable display? "In the short term, yes, the process can increase our raw materials cost by 15% to as much as 45%," Hart admits. "We pride ourselves, however, on being a lean, sustainable integrated manufacturing facility. Being lean has allowed us to reduce labor by as much as 30% and hold waste down to under 5% of the materials we use."Additional Costs Offset But sustainable materials don't necessarily have to cost more than the virgin materials they replace, says John Keck, vice president & general manager of Pratt Industries, Conyers, Ga., which produces packaging from 100% recycled material. "We pick up 50% of New York City's waste paper and transport it by barge to our paper mill on Staten Island," he says. "There we convert it to linerboard used in packaging and displays." At President Clinton's Global Initiative (CGI) meeting in New York, September 26, 2007, company owner Anthony Pratt announced a $1 billion commitment towards investment in paper recycling and waste-to-energy Infrastructure: three new paper recycling mills, four waste-to-energy plants, and 30 material recovery facilities (MRF's), as well as ancillary packaging plants to fully integrate the paper mills.Still, the general consensus is that the use of sustainable materials does, in fact, usually increase raw material costs. Over the life of the display or package, however, this additional cost can be offset by more efficient design and by manufacturing practices that reduce waste and energy use, as well as by the fact that many of the materials can be re-used or recycled. "As designers, we believe that it is in the best interest of our customers, and their customers, to review our processes and work with our suppliers to make sure that the solutions we offer are designed and fabricated in ways that are cognizant of waste and energy use," says Pettipas of Canada's HOK.Scott Brevda, a project manager and member of the family that owns Ryan Scott Inc., Greensboro, N.C., agrees: "After several years of producing sustainable displays, we have found ways to achieve sustainability without increasing cost," says Brevda. "The cost versus sustainability equation starts at the design table and needs to be addressed in the beginning." Ryan Scott has also cut its costs by increasing energy efficiency. "All office lighting has been replaced with energy efficient bulbs wherever possible," Brevda explains. "Some 50% of the lighting in the warehouse is natural light, and large windows facing south help heat our front office space in the winter."The company has also made a conscious effort to reduce waste. "We directly reuse all overrun materials and as much as we can of the packaging material that we receive with goods," says Brevda. "We try to maintain a low overrun percentage even when the cost of doing so may be higher. We also try to scale down on inner packaging." Ryan Scott also pays close attention to designing for sustainability. "We try to design components that have multiple functions," Brevda explains. We also design our displays to pack as compactly as possible to reduce both materials cost and freight."As environmental awareness continues to increase, it should become less expensive to achieve sustainability, says Isley: "We see the future cost of environmentally friendly materials as increasing like everything else, but at a rate less than that of inflation. Cost is really no longer an issue, in fact. Availability is a bigger consideration. When we first started looking at recycled paper, for example, there were only a few mills capable of producing what we were looking for. Today there are companies that routinely supply 100% recycled material."Ivey's Hart agrees. "Our experience has been that when sustainable materials first land in our supply chain, they cost up to 20% more than the materials they replace," says Hart. "Their cost usually drops to equal, however, over the ensuing 12-18 months."Pettipas of HOK is even more optimistic: "I believe that as expectations and consumer demand for sustainability rises, the current cost of materials will actually decline, primarily due to supply and demand."Costs should remain under control as the sustainability's momentum increases. "Until a few years ago, the drive for sustainability was led by industrial designers and architects with their push for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) buildings, " says Isley. "Now, however, graphic designers are beginning to catch up, and many suggestions for improvement come from the bottom up rather than from the top down."

Do You Need To Spend Green To Be Green?

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