Can you count the cost of the environmental impact your print has on the environment? Cestrian can, thanks to the POPAI Sustain measurement tool.
“2022 has seen the rise in requests from prospects, customers and stakeholders asking us if we can provide the carbon footprint of the products we produce. Retailers, brands and media agencies are all under pressure from consumers to take responsibility for their impact on the environment and we’ve come to know we need to lead and guide our supply chain to help in this drive for change.” So says Shane Furness, commercial director at Cestrian.
Sustainability has been a key focus at the Cheadle-based, Carbon Smart certified, PSP for a number of years “and we’re constantly thinking of new ways to make improvements,” stresses Furness, pointing to one of its most recent initiatives - signing up to POPAI’s Sustain Global Eco-Design environmental impact measurement tool that has been specifically developed for the POP industry. It lets you measure as many projects as you need and up to six versions of a project to help discover their environmental impacts, with assessments carried out in accordance with ISO 14067-1 and the GHG Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard.
“Like many companies, we recognise the impact that our business has on the environment and that it is imperative that we do the right thing. In addition to our own drive to be more sustainable, our customers are also under pressure from their customers to do the same. We have a passionate team here that has taken on the company’s sustainability strategy in addition to their day-to-day role, and that team wanted to start getting indicative figures together for the environmental impact of our standard printed products.
“We’d been aware of Sustain from POPAI for a while and we knew that would be our next investment - not an investment in terms of money, as its very reasonable [a six-month licence is £850 for non-POPAI members] - but an investment in terms of time. We signed up to Sustain in the summer and we’re really pleased with it so far. The customer service team is really responsive - happy to look at getting new products into the system - and a new improved version has recently been released which we’re working through at the moment,” says Furness.
He explains: “We’re currently using Sustain to benchmark different variations of the same project, whether that is the recycled content within the material, the way we package it up for delivery, or how we get it delivered. We always have a good idea of how the results will look, but it’s great to get them in black and white from an industry standard tool.
“We’re also using the results to show our customers the benefits of switching to more sustainable products. It doesn’t look much when you show the environmental savings of one poster, but when you multiply it by thousands the carbon saving moves from grams to tonnes each year.”
Furness says Cestrian is working with Sustain every day and is also in regular communication with POPAI on how it can be made to work even better for the company. And he’s keen to point out that the tool is just one of the sustainability elements it is using to reduce its environmental impact.
“For us it’s about manageable achievements - there’s no point saying you’re going to be PVC-free next year if you haven’t got a plan to actually get there.
“One of our proudest achievements is when we set ourselves a challenge to reduce the amount of non-recyclable packaging and components we were using on a daily basis. 100% of our packaging for all our customer deliveries is now fully recyclable and PVC-free, and that includes component parts such as paper-based tape, bubble wrap, tubing, strapping and cable ties too.
“This is also our seventh year of being zero-waste-to-landfill, something we are extremely proud of. Through this initiative, we have produced 5,449 traffic cones using waste diverted away from EfW. And our materials are being recycled into more paper-based or sporting equipment from PVC and PE waste material.
“We’re also busy getting ready for our next ISO audit - we’ve held the accreditation for 11 years now.
“We are incredibly proud of the work we have done to date on reducing our environmental impact. There’s lots going on behind the scenes and we’re very excited about some of the initiatives that will come to fruition over the coming months.”