Green updates and advice on offer
Monitoring and managing environmental performance is something that all companies should be doing, whether or not they are legally compelled to. The Green Signage Workshop provided insight into the latest updates to regulations and offered advice to companies looking to get started on their sustainability journey.
The workshop was run by Daniel Oelker of invidis impact, who encouraged contributions and discussions from the audience.
He noted that sustainability was much less of a theme on ISE exhibitors’ stands this year compared with previous years. His interpretation of this was that expectations in this area have become more realistic after the initial buzz five or six years ago.
Oelker gave an update on the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which is likely to come into force in 2026, although the timeline has not been finalised. Although the directive will only require larger companies to report their environmental performance, these companies will need to report emissions along their value chain – so their suppliers, of whatever size, will have to track their own performance as well, with a view to improving it.
He advised: “It will hit you sooner or later. My recommendation is to do some small steps – start learning more, start becoming aware it cannot be avoided, and identify low-hanging fruits.” An example of this could be to move hosting to eco-certified providers. “Your speed of movement is for you to decide, but it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
The workshop also explored technology developments with a bearing on sustainability. For instance, 93% of a display’s lifetime carbon emissions are produced while is it on site – during roll-out, installation, operation, service and rollback. ePaper, with its much lower energy consumption, appears to offer a solution here, but cannot currently compete with standard displays in areas such as colour gamut and refresh time. Philips is expecting 20% of the digital signage market to migrate to ePaper.
Another interesting and potentially very significant initiative was announced at ISE this year: Sharp/NEC’s Second-Life concept, where returned displays are refurbished, classified, certified and resold with a manufacturer-backed warranty.
Oelker also announced the invidis Carbon Footprint Calculator, to be released later this year, that will aid the calculation of emissions from digital signage networks.
