Antalis is cleaning up its product portfolio, sometimes as a consequence of its suppliers improving their performance and sometimes as customer demand moves from one product to a similar substrate, but with a better profile.
Key to this is a Green Star rating by which the merchant identifies and rates the environmental performance of products across its portfolio, from recycled papers to rigid and flexible display graphics.
The Green Star system considers the raw materials used in the product and its end of life, can the product be reused or recycled, or does it have to be disposed of in landfill? Thus products that are produced using renewable energy sources rank higher than those from factories or mills that are dependent on fossil fuel energy generation in a five-grade system. Also, plant based products and recycled materials rank higher than single use plastics. Equally, those that can be reused, paper for example or polypropylene, will rank higher than composite substrates and those with PVC. This allows customers to make an informed choice and for Antalis to encourage suppliers to improve their products. It aims to have 75% of the portfolio rated at three stars or more by 2030.
This mostly affects the display graphics catalogue. Paper is intrinsically more sustainable, though there are differences. The entire ArjoWiggins range of papers, for example, is fully carbon offset at source. This includes papers made at the Stoneywood Mill in Scotland, with a reduced carbon footprint attributable to distribution in the UK at least. Boards comes from Iggesund’s mills in Warrington, where on site energy production and local sourcing of fibre are exemplary actions to reduce the carbon impact, or from Sweden, where the EcoVadis organisation has awarded production its highest ranking.
The merchant is also able to offset carbon emissions from other grades using the World Land Trust or Forest Carbon.
Alongside the Green Star ranking, Antalis has gathered huge amounts of data about CSR policies, about suppliers and their products. This is made available under the Antrak sustainable supply chain database. It builds on what the company needed to do to comply with the EU Timber Regulations, combined with REACH, with FSC and PEFC, plus environmental characteristics of a material, such as percentage of recycled fibre included.
The company has kept PVC based products in the range despite the difficulties of recycling and limited end of life use options for this material. On the other hand it is robust, easy to print and low cost, accounting for its continuing popularity. But there are alternatives: Xanita as a fibre board produced from recycled cardboard boxes, Triaprint, a banner material and Katz Board, a fibre based option for foam boards.
The awareness that alternatives are needed exists. This is a reason for Antalis to work with HH Global and Linney and the Popai Sustainability Council; to research the realities compared to the perceptions of where the retail sector actually is, the challenges related to the recycling of products that are currently used and whether this might change, and then what the alternatives might be. It is led by environmental consultant Steve Lister, who is also head of sustainability for Popai.
The project covers both display materials and packaging. This has already been highlighted by DS Smith which has pointed out that the rise of ecommerce has made recovery of packaging boards more challenging. What used to be collection from the rear of the store is now subject to kerbside collection by local authorities.
The aim is to establish a transparent lifecycle view of instore marketing materials so that sustainability can be built in at the design stage. This will involve recommendations on the use of materials, where Antalis can potentially benefit with its more sustainable display products.
The Antalis sustainability story will receive support after its acquisition last year by KPP, Japan’s largest merchant group which has a huge emphasis on an environmental stance. It states: “Our group endeavours to build a recycling oriented society through proposals for environmentally friendly products, the collection of recovered paper and the recycling of resources.” In the home market this means running collection points in offices and in public spaces to collect the raw material for its mills.
This is unlikely to come to Europe, where the use and collection of fibre for recycling is established. Nor is there likely to be any impact from another innovation from KPP. It has developed the Eco Press binder, a binding line that uses a tooth form press rather than stitching wire to bind books of up to 30pp. This is for “companies who wish to advertise their strong commitment to reducing their environmental impact”.
