Three tips for making your event ‘green’
Scan Display has proven to be a leader in South African green exhibition design, winning awards locally (six EXSA Green Awards – three as Joint Ventures) and internationally (the UFI Sustainable Development Award in 2013 and a Bronze Award for the Exhibit Design Awards Green Stands category in 2012). Here they share their top tips about what to consider when designing and building green stands.
1. Procurement
Where you source your stand materials, decor and furniture is hugely important. You should be thinking local, local, local. The more local the source, the better it is.
You also need to consider whether the materials you use are environmentally-friendly, in terms of the following criteria:
Where and how they are sourced: Sustainable resources are preferable to those that are finite. Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) wood is cultivated in a more sustainable manner than other woods, making it a preferable product.
Manufacture: Energy intense and polluting processes are obviously less desirable than the converse of this. Ask your supplier questions about the manufacture and origin of their materials before making a purchasing decision.
Final product: Is the final product healthy for the people using it, and the environment? For example, many paints contain lead. Research the materials you commonly use and let this guide your choices.
Lifespan: When part of the stand is no longer needed, what will happen to it? Ideally you want to re-use it, or, if this is not possible, the next best option is to recycle it. The last, and worst, option is to send it to landfill. You should always avoid this if you can.
2. Reusability
Stands should be designed to be re-usable. There are a number of considerations to keep in mind here:
Modular design: This makes it easier to re-build the stand, and, if necessary, to create different configurations to fit different spaces.
Durable: The more robust the design, the better it will last over multiple builds.
Easy to disassemble and re-assemble: If the stand can be taken apart and put back together easily, you improve your chances that this will be done without damaging the structure.
Lightweight and packs small: This makes transporting the stand for rebuilds easier, more cost-effective and more carbon-effective – as less petrol should be needed with smaller, lighter loads.
3. De-materialisation
This refers to using fewer materials for your stand, such as avoiding unnecessary walls and structures. This is environmentally beneficial because your stand requires fewer resources, less manufacture, less transport and so on.
At the end of the day, remember that the perfect green stand would be an open space with no structures on it. However, this would be a failure of a stand. So the role of the stand builder is to find the balance between the two; to weigh up all the options to create a stand that works for the client, while minimising any harm it will cause the environment.
