How digital print is driving green gift card disruption

Green Gift Cards have been disrupting the gift card industry for years.

We've been challenging the status quo because there is a much more sustainable and efficient way to deliver gift cards.

Nat West Bank research has found that the lack of recycling options for plastic payment, gift, and loyalty cards, has resulted in over 76 million cards, or 380 tonnes of plastic waste going to landfill since 2017 in Great Britain alone.

We want to change that. We are encouraging brands to switch to a more sustainable paperboard alternative that is fully recyclable and produces 95% less carbon when being manufactured compared to PVC cards.

To achieve that, we are educating organisations on how simple it is to switch to cards that are certified plastic-free, compostable, and recyclable in regular household waste streams.

Our strategy is to remove the burden on the consumer and card issuer when dealing with the card at the end of its short life.

Our solution eliminates the need for specialist and expensive recycling and, most importantly, avoids sending the cards to incinerators and landfills.

This relentless pursuit of refining the best possible alternative to plastic has put us in a market-leading position. It has put us in front of clients across multiple markets in Britain, Europe and worldwide, including retail, finance, hotels, travel, and leisure.  

We have also worked hard to form strategic partnerships with manufacturers and the supply chain. This approach earned us the much coveted Plastic Free Trust Mark Certification for our cards.

We went to drupa 24 with Ricoh to share with visitors the significant role digital print technology plays in the responsive, efficient, cost-effective and sustainable production of our cards.

The future is short run digital print for retailers. Supporting that service delivery and our commitment to creating a positive legacy and making a progressive impact in the card market is the Co-innovation we have undertaken with Ricoh.

The print quality possible on the RICOH Pro™ C9500 digital sheetfed press allows us to produce what is required when it is required. The ability to manage a wide range of thicknesses up to 660 microns supports product versatility.

My ambition now is to educate brands and retailers to move away from a traditional analogue offset production process to printing with a digital on-demand for a lean supply chain.

This will enable them to print according to sales data rather than forecast data. To use real-time figures that are more relevant. There is no longer the need to tie up money printing and producing stock that sits in warehouses ready for call off.

Like Ricoh’s commitment to HENKAKU, the Japanese for Transformational Innovation, we believe Green Gift Cards presents the card industry with a transformational new approach that delivers many business-winning benefits. It is also a great opportunity for progressive print service providers to provide new and sustainable service to retail clients.