Pranil Chandra February 21, 2025
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Imagine walking into a store or event where every display not only captivates your attention but also contributes to a healthier planet.
This reality is becoming the case as sustainability becomes a priority for consumers, and businesses like yours look for innovative ways to reduce their environmental impact. The challenge? Balancing striking designs with eco-friendly practices.
Here’s the good news: you can strike this balance brilliantly (and easily). By leveraging paper-based materials like Re-board® and embracing eco design principles, reducing your carbon footprint is not only possible but also cost-effective and visually impactful.
In this article, you’ll discover actionable strategies for designing eco-friendly displays, including smart material choices, waste-reducing techniques, and success stories that prove sustainability and innovation go hand in hand.
One of the most effective ways to reduce your carbon footprint in retail display production is by carefully selecting materials. The shift toward sustainability begins with choosing resources that are renewable, recyclable, and low in environmental impact.
A standout material in eco-friendly displays is Re-board® – a lightweight yet durable paper-based product. Made from renewable paper fibres, Re-board® is not only strong but also fully recyclable. Its versatility makes it perfect for eye-catching displays, while its eco-credentials ensure your brand supports green design practices.
Other paper-based products, like cardboard and recyclable paper, are equally essential in sustainable design. These materials are derived from a renewable resource – trees – which, when responsibly sourced, contribute positively to the environment. Unlike plastics or non-recyclable composites, paper-based options decompose naturally, reducing long-term waste.
By embracing sustainable paper-based products, your displays won’t just stand out – they’ll stand for something meaningful: a commitment to reducing your impact on the planet.
Creating eco-friendly displays isn’t just about the materials you use but about how you design and build them. Smart design practices combine creativity with eco-conscious planning to minimise waste and maximise impact. And here’s how:
The principle of “designing for sustainability” means thinking about the entire lifecycle of your displays. Can the materials be reused or recycled after use? Modular designs, for example, allow components to be repurposed for future projects, reducing waste and saving costs.
Efficient use of materials is key to reducing your environmental impact. By precisely planning the size and layout of your displays, you can minimise off-cuts and waste. For example, designs optimised for Re-board® can use every inch of the material, ensuring that nothing is wasted.
Lightweight materials like Re-board® not only reduce transportation emissions but also make installation easier and more cost-effective. Choosing such materials demonstrates a commitment to reducing your carbon footprint while maintaining the durability and aesthetics of your designs.
Eco design principles encourage simplicity and functionality. Avoid overcomplicated structures that require excess materials or energy to produce and instead, focus on streamlined designs that achieve maximum visual impact with minimal resources.
By adopting these strategies, your displays can embody green design practices, helping your brand reduce its carbon footprint while showcasing your commitment to sustainability.
Event displays often prioritise grandeur, but that doesn’t have to come at the planet’s expense. By using paper-based materials and optimising designs for minimal waste, it’s possible to deliver a standout presence while drastically reducing your carbon footprint.
Many businesses are already reaping the benefits of shifting to sustainable materials and smart design practices for their events or retail marketing. And it needn’t always be a customised solution either, with companies like Europe-based Cartonlab making it easier than ever to create displays using pre-made fully recyclable materials and processes – their store contains nothing but cardboard-produced furniture!
Wondering how durable cardboard can be for anything more than a short-term pop-up event? Take a look at how the Bridge Road Brewers in Melbourne achieved exactly this with their pop-up bar aptly named ‘A Bar Made of Cardboard’, featuring nothing but cardboard furniture and in situ for over 6 months.
Of course, NEXT Printing has been proving that sustainability and innovation go hand in hand for over a decade. Through strategic material selection and thoughtful design practices, we’ve helped businesses achieve their sustainability goals while delivering standout displays that leave a lasting impression.
Take our project with customer INVNT for Xerocon, a global roadshow run by tech-giant Xero which involved 18 activations and over 150 exhibitor stands across 3 countries in 3 months – made almost exclusively using Re-board®. While this successful multi-city event went large on creativity, with activations featuring barber shops, ‘silent disco style’ breakout sessions, open cinemas and pop-up jazz bands, the team kept sustainability at the forefront throughout the process and with no limits to its creative impact.
We also demonstrated the results you can achieve using only paper in a display, with a sample put together for gin distiller Archie Rose. Colourful, creative and eco-conscious, the display showed how brands don’t need to trade vibrancy for sustainability, with a finished piece that consumers would find tough to ignore.
These real-world examples illustrate that smart design paired with sustainable materials can deliver exceptional results. By adopting these principles, your displays can be both impactful and eco-friendly, helping your brand stand out in an increasingly sustainability-focused market.
Reducing your carbon footprint through smart design is no longer an option – it’s a necessity for brands aiming to align with today’s eco-conscious consumers. By choosing sustainable materials like Re-board® and other paper-based products, and implementing eco design principles, you can create retail and event displays that are not only visually stunning but also planet-friendly.
By taking steps toward greener design practices, your brand can showcase its commitment to sustainability, enhance its reputation, and contribute to a healthier planet. Now is the time to make smart design the cornerstone of your strategy – and NEXT Printing is here to help you lead the way.
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