Environment

There needs to be a balance when we are specifying solutions. Natural inks, recycled fabrics and organic glues are all available today but, a truck lives for 7 years in a harsh environment and our customers need to know that we have control of the processes. The most ecologically sound materials would last no more than 3 months. However, we have a continuous R&D programme to make sure we are offering the best balance of environment v longevity.

In the vast majority of our production, we avoid solvents and non-recyclable materials. We are active in regular think tanks with major manufactures and we have cooperated with many of our customers to trial developing technologies that would normally take 3+ years to reach the open market. So we believe there is a right and wrong way to care about the environment. We are active. Where we need to specify a raw material, we will counteract it by ensuring there is an audited and demonstrable recycling programme.

We were the first to recycle our PVC and we are the first to offer PE as a genuine solution for our truck sides. We only specify water-based adhesives and we are heavily investing in sustainable alternatives to solvent inks. We are not preferential to any material manufacturer, so you won't see 3M or Avery logos on our site, all this means to us is that you would be waiting for someone else to innovate and importantly our innovation is not production lead.

Sainsbury's came to us with an electric vehicle, which, because of the battery weight it had a reduced payload so we needed to reduce the weight of the graphics . This lead us away from PVC to PE. PE is less than 10% of the weight, twice the strength and has a fully closed loop recycling programme supported by Hewlett Packard. Before the switch, we had to investigate and trial welding techniques and we worked closely with the guys at Traxx to develop a PE specific keder. Out of our innovation a new Patent was created.

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Sainsbury's Little Green Van

For the past few years, Sainsbury’s have been running trials on a small fleet of electric vehicles alongside their main diesel powered fleet. The “Little Green Van”, as its livery calls it, is a conscious effort by the supermarket giant to minimise the environmental impact of its activities in servicing its customers' needs. RGVA are running a similar effort with this project with trials of lightweight, re-cyclable PE skins to go not just on the electric vans but, eventually, on the entire fleet.