BeaPPDS has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting and promoting sustainability in the AV industry with a strategy that is designed to help customers reduce their electronic waste and enhance their green credentials. This will see the company continue to bring more energy efficient products to market, reconfiguring and reducing packaging, while providing greater access to information on energy consumption, for more educated and environmentally focused business buying decisions.
The declaration was made by Martijn van der Woude, Head of Global Business Development and Marketing at PPDS, who was speaking at the company’s Global Access: Future Tech international event for end customers and its Global Partner Alliance, held at the MK7 Oracle Red Bull Racing Technology Campus in Milton Keynes this month (November).
With retail, corporate and hospitality all key focuses of the event – and with representatives from as far as Taiwan in attendance – Martijn outlined some of the actions and measures already taken, with a commitment to bringing even more in 2023. This includes extending its focus on delivering the most energy conscious products to market and bringing lower cost of ownership to customers – more relevant than ever in the ongoing global energy crisis.
Martijn van der Woude comments, “Sustainability has always been of great importance to us at PPDS. We’re proud of what we have achieved to date, and we feel it is our duty and our responsibility, both to customers – who are calling for this – and to the planet, to do even more. And we encourage our competitors to do the same.
“Collaborating closely with our partners, we will be working hard to ensure that our existing and future Philips professional display products and solutions continue to provide best-in-class experiences, while also delivering on lowest energy consumption and reduced impacts throughout product lifecycles, including the use of recycled and recyclable materials, and the carbon neutrality of products.”
PPDS – playing its part
In addition to improving the energy efficiency of its digital signage, interactive displays, dvLED and Pro TV solutions, PPDS, alongside its sister organisations, TP Vision, MMD Monitors and Displays, and AOC, has already made significant strides in enhancing its green credentials throughout the display lifecycle – from manufacturing in its factories, along transportation journeys, through to its headquarters and regional sales operations.
Benefiting from its unique position, manufacturing its own products in its own factories (no outsourcing) as a part of TPV, PPDS is owner of its own destiny, ensuring appropriate measures are taken throughout the entire production process, from concept to completion.
“This helps to reduce our carbon footprint without compromising the safety of each display during transit and it reduces the levels of waste likely to be immediately disposed of” comments Stefan van Sabben, Global CSR and Sustainability Manager. “Philips professional displays are packaged in brown board boxes, with one colour only printing using soy-based ink. This ethos is continued through the packaging of pre-production components, with finished packaging made almost fully of recyclable materials.
“These, and many more measures, will continue to be evolved and introduced during 2023 and beyond – with a number of innovative solutions to be unveiled during ISE 2023.”
Greater transparency
In tandem with this exciting focus, PPDS also provides clear and immediate access to information around the energy efficiency of its range of digital signage, interactive displays, dvLED and Pro TV products to customers.
Earlier this year the EU’s revised energy labelling system came into force, replacing the existing labelling (A+++, A++, A+, A, B, C and D) with a more simplified A-G measurement rating. Existing appliances with an A or A+ rating are likely now listed as G.
The new A-G labels placed on Philips professional displays now feature a QR code which, when scanned using a smart phone, immediately show the information stored on the EPREL database, allowing greater transparency to customers and easier market surveillance by national authorities.
Martijn adds, “It’s estimated that up to 25% of products in the market do not comply with energy efficiency labelling regulations and that around 10% of potential energy savings are lost due to non-compliance. The new labelling and database will help improve understanding and coherence for customers to correctly identify and select the most efficient products.”
Sustainability – a global business priority
Another survey revealed that 45% of businesses have elected to take sustainability more seriously, while for 32% it continues to be a major focus.
Stefan van Sabben adds, “As a part of our evolution as a business, we’re placing sustainability as an even greater core focus on our mission statement. Our ambitions are to continue to grow our business, but we want to grow responsibly and sustainably. As well as being accredited and working towards accreditations with a growing number of sustainability focused benchmark organisations, including EcoVadis, we have set ourselves some challenging environmental and social targets. It’s part of our DNA, working closely with Royal Philips, which is recognised as the second top brand in green technology globally, and we’re committed in the belief that this is the best way for us to create superior, long-term value to our customers.”
“Part of the ethos announced in our rebrand statement highlighted our ‘global reach, local support’ strategy. This is hugely important on many different levels. In short, we have physical teams located across the world, which greatly reduces the travel needs for arranging meetings, sales and visiting project sites. Videocalls, rather than physical meetings are also greatly encouraged where possible and our business has been set up to support remote working. Our Philips C-Line range makes this even easier – meaning the pandemic meant no radical changes for us and allowed us to function fairly closely to normal.”
Product DNA
Sustainability is also something being reflected in PPDS’ most recently launched solutions – most evident with its ranges of corporate (Philips C-Line), education (Philips E-Line), hospitality (Philips MediaSuite) displays, which facilitate and encourage remote working/learning/entertainment, while helping to reduce unnecessary electronic waste. Taking things further, PPDS’ new Philips DV LED range is now designed to deliver proven low energy consumption without compromising on performance.
From a longevity focus, PPDS’ Philips MediaSuite hospitality TVs sit on an updateable Android platform, providing significant return on investment and sustainability benefits, with customers receiving free software updates as part of the PPDS ‘Extended Lifetime’ promise. This allows all the latest features and security patches to be made available to older models (managed entirely remotely and with no unnecessary travel), allowing them to function and offer the same experience as the latest MediaSuite debuts. This not only ensures a consistent experience in all rooms, with product lifetime extended, there is an immediate reduction in unnecessary replacements and therefore WEEE.