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Green Displays – Building environmentally friendly displays

Inside Small Business | November 19th, 2008

Ted Ridgway, President of Impact Displays

In the past few years the event and trade show display industry has made progress in reducing the impact our products have on the environment. At Impact Displays, we’re seeing increased interest in “green” display solutions, and I’d like to highlight some options currently available for going green. The environmental mantra “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” applies to the displays industry. And there are new, high quality printing solutions that reduce harmful chemical emissions.

For starters, it’s important to reduce the weight of your display as much as possible, reducing fuel consumption and shipping costs between events. Your best bet for lightweight displays include frames made of aluminum and graphics printed on lightweight media. These strategies can cut several hundred pounds from your display weight, which adds up to substantial energy savings, particularly if your company is a frequent event or show exhibitor.

We emphasize the portability of our displays and most of our products are much lighter than traditional modular displays. Our lightest weight products are fabric pop-up displays, the FabWall fabric backwall, the BigFab, the Xpressions displays, and our complete line of banner stands. Our non-fabric pop-ups are also very lightweight when compared to traditional panel systems, custom booths, and modular systems.

To create “re-use” look for a display that can be used in different configurations for multiple types of events, venues or shows. This will allow you to re-use your single display with different graphics instead of using multiple specific displays for different shows. Our Highline and Pronto displays can convert from 10 x 10 inline systems to 20 x 20 island systems, giving exhibitors 4 booths in 1.

You should also look for displays that are made of recycled materials. At Impact Displays, we are offering printed graphics on a variety of recycled media substrates from fabric to banner to board cores that have 50-100% post-consumer content. The performance of these recycled alternatives is comparable to their non-recycled counterparts, but their manufacture requires less energy. And, they consume less virgin raw material and reduce the waste stream into landfills. For example, our new Eco-celtic fabric, is made from 65% recycled polyester (from soda bottles) and each yard of Eco-Celtic cloth conserves approximately 44,000 BTUs of energy, equivalent to 1/3 gallons of gasoline. It’s a very cool alternative.

Finally, take advantage of new environmentally friendly printing and ink technologies. Most outdoor signage will need to be printed on durable media (ie, vinyl) using solvent based inks. Newer low VOC “eco-solvent” printers create lower levels of fumes in the printing and drying process. For indoor printing on paper, look for chlorine-free stock and look for inks made of natural pigments or dyes.

Next time you’re looking for a display, consider one of the many ways you can go green. You’ll get a great display and do your part to reduce our impact on the environment!

*Ted Ridgway is President of Impact Displays, a leading trade show and event display and graphics production company located in Santa Clara CA. Ted’s background includes senior positions at RadiSys Corp, where he was VP and GM of the company’s Carrier Equipment business unit, and at investment banks including Credit Suisse, Salomon Brothers, Volpe Brown Whalen and Seven Hills Partners. Ted lives with his family in San Francisco CA.