Making your white van green
Part funded by
Delivered by
Supported by
BRANDFIXX
Company vehicles are an ideal place to advertise your company. Acting as moving billboards, liveried vans, lorries, cars and other vehicles can broadcast your business to everyone else on the road.
Hull-based Brandfixx are a decal company who are using a revolutionary new way to wrap vehicles. They already knew their approach was easier to install and quicker than other methods – but is it also greener? They came to the Aura Innovation Centre to find out.
THE CHALLENGE
PROJECT PARTNERS:
A brand new way of doing things
Brandfixx was founded in 2020 by father-son team David and Greg Saunderson, as they want to solve the traditional issues associated with branding vehicles.
Brandfixx’s revolutionary new process uses state-of-the-art 3D scanning technology to produce a modular kit which precisely fits the panels of the vehicle they’re wrapping. This streamlines the design, production and application processes, meaning not only a significant cost saving, but also making it much quicker to wrap a vehicle.
They believe their new process is also less carbon-intensive, compared to competitors, but they didn’t have the expertise to calculate the carbon footprint of their services. They came to the Aura Innovation Centre to ask for help to find out how green their new process was.
THE SOLUTION
LEAD RESEARCHERS:
Dr Md Mamoon Al Bashir
University of Hull
Dr Sushma Kumari
University of Hull
PROJECT FUNDER:
No quick fix
Brandfixx have two main goals – they want to calculate and compare CO2 emissions from their new process versus the traditional wrapping process, and they want suggestions for how they can make their service even better.
The Aura Innovation Centre’s Dave Dawson secured ERDF funding for the project, then assembled a team of experts in logistics and supply chain management from Hull University Business School, who put together a research project to investigate Brandfixx’s carbon footprint.
THE RESULT
That’s a wrap
Brandfixx took part in an experiment to demonstrate both conventional wrapping and their new modular process. The team brought a van into the AIC’s research space, and were filmed wrapping it the traditional way. The same van was then wrapped using Brandfixx’s new process. The academic team analysed the video evidence, calculating how often carbon-intensive tools were used during the process, and worked out the carbon footprint.
To get the full picture, the team also evaluated waste generated by both processes, and materials used – for example, printing materials and ink.
The findings were astonishing – compared to traditional methods, Brandfixx save over four hours of time per vehicle, produce 40% less waste, and reduce the carbon footprint by over 70%. The academics were also able to make recommendations on how Brandfixx can continue to make their product even greener.
Brandfixx’s Greg Saunderson said: “Working with the AIC has given us access to world class expertise in carbon footprint mapping. The results have surpassed our expectations, and proved that businesses really can be both green AND profitable.”
Brandfixx’s revolutionary new process has boosted their environmental credentials, and given them a considerable competitive advantage, making them officially greener and cleaner than their rivals. And that’s a wrap.
