Five Tips in Designing Environmentally Friendly P-O-P

Earlier this year, Walmart began a new initiative to grade and score products by answering questions like: Is this product easier to recycle? The retail titan is making markters rethink the way they build P-O-P displays. It has a goal of cutting packaging on products in its stores 5% by 2013. That will save nearly $11 billion a year, mostly for brands using less cardboard and plastic and more eco-friendly materials.

More and more agencies and brands are devising strategies to integrate green packaging, P-O-P displays and other marketing materials without compromising great design.

Jim Polowy, the vice president, environmental design director at TPN, a retail marketing agency, offers five basic elements to think about when designing environmental friendly P-O-P materials.

1.Simplification You want to design for fewer components, which means less manufacturing and materials. This controls waste and is beneficial for storage and freight.

2. Flexibility Create a P-O-P system or element that can be easily updated or refreshed without having to dispose of the entire structure.

3. Weight Less weight translates to less materials, less energy consumed in manufacturing and less costs for freight and fuel.

4. Streamline Make the manufacturing stage less costly and decrease labor and material costs by limiting the amount of elements and materials in the design phase.

5. Recycling Be selective in specifying materials, substrates as well as green materials. Think about the production processes for your design, as well as the materials that go into it to assure they can be easily recycled.