The estate of 150 high street stores (including Footlocker on London’s Oxford Street, pictured here with a Nike display) utilised for the study revealed a carbon saving over three years of 29.74 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) following the shift to a digital window-display solution. This is said to be equivalent to the total energy consumption of a typical UK household for more than five years.
The study also showed that – taking into account emissions ‘from warehouse to warehouse’ – the carbon consumption of a projected display is 7.5 percent lower.
The digital display analysed for the study consisted of a Panasonic PT-D4000 projector, 3M Vikuiti film applied to the window and a Cisco media player. All changes of content were sent via a broadband line, eliminating repeated printing of materials and road distribution.
“We have experience of looking at the environmental aspects of various business practice and these results show a strong positive result for the use of digital media,” said Dr Joyce Tsoi, research fellow at Brunel. “Surprisingly little sustainability research exists that can inform business opinion about carbon performance issues, and we were pleased to be involved in what we believe will be a significant step forward in encouraging environmental debate in the point-of-sale advertising business.”
