Call the effort what you will. Environmentally friendly. Eco-conscious. Some in the kiosk industry prefer to call it doing the right thing. But there’s more work to do.
“The kiosk industry has a lot more to do to become green,” said Juhi Jotwani, IBM’s director of marketing and strategy for retail store solutions. “We have pockets of success. You sort of see these brightspots, but on the whole there is a lot to be desired.”
Here are five ways to help your kiosk become “green.”
No. 1: Comply with RoHS
Manufacturing kiosks in the United States is easier than doing it overseas. But selling the machines is much harder outside America.
The reason: Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS), a stringent and mandatory production standard limiting certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment. The policy has quickly spread to Asia and become the standard many companies follow and that customers demand.
Many global companies, like NCR and IBM, have completely revamped their production practices to comply with RoHS regulations. Besides being the right thing to do for the environment, representatives say, it’s a must to change now if they want to continue doing business outside the country where their products otherwise would not be allowed.
“It’s a direction the world is going,” said Pete Charpentier, kiosk product manager for NCR.
No. 2: Use less metal
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Olea introduced its "green kiosk" made from organic waste material at the NRF show in Jan. |
Many kiosks still contain parts produced with chemicals and toxins that do not break down safely when tossed into the earth. But several manufacturers have established recycling programs that go so far as to melt plastic and metal from the shells of kiosks no longer in use and reshape it for new equipment. They also are using less foam and turning to other environmentally friendly parts.
To entice colleagues within the kiosk industry to think green, Olea Inc. produced what it deemed a “green” kiosk. The machine, put on display last month at the National Retail Federation Convention & Expo in New York, was made from organic waste material such as cardboard and plastic.
“We feel that this new kiosk is a very innovative step in the right direction showing retailers and other companies that it is possible to go high-tech green at the same time,” company vice president Frank Olea said in a press release.
No. 3: Recycle
Companies like Michigan-based NEXTEP SYSTEMS have stopped burying kiosks in landfills. Instead, it puts them in something of a mechanical mausoleum where the retired kiosks are stripped of material Nextep can reuse in new equipment. Material it can’t use sits as potential scrap for other customers, said Tommy Woycik, the company’s president.
“If you can upgrade a system rather than completely replace it, it’s more cost-effective and environmentally friendly,” he said. “We’d rather use it for scrap than throw it into a landfill.”
No. 4: Power down
Over time, there can be a substantial cost to run a kiosk, which can escalate significantly with machines that demand a surge of constant energy to power the software, light the screen and fire up accessories such as digital marquees.
When machines are not in use, they are often left on. About the only time the kiosks are turned off is when the store using the equipment is closed, if then.
Bill Lynch of Source Technologies suggests incorporating an idle mode that puts a machine into a standby status when not in use for a certain period of time. That would cut down on the wattage draw because the units would not be running as normal.
The problem, he says, is that vendors, constantly looking at ways to generate additional revenue, could see an always-visible screen as opportunity to place advertising or marketing messages.
No. 5: Pay attention to paper
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NCR devised two-sided thermal technology to enable kiosks to dispense smaller strips of paper. |
Until a few years ago, customers shopping at a grocery store might leave with a fistful of paper receipts. Depending on the extent of the trip, the main one could be a foot long, listing each item and sandwiched with the store’s logo and other information like in-store savings and the company slogan. Then there are other printouts with coupons for future purchases, and even more paper plugging store promotions.
NCR devised two-sided thermal technology to enable kiosks to print the purchase breakdown and coupons on both sides of a receipt and dispense smaller strips of paper. Charpentier sees opportunity for companies to also tap the Internet.
Instead of paper, businesses could use information collected through frequent shopper programs and send receipts and coupons digitally to a customer’s e-mail address or mobile device.
“There are people who will shop at a store for that reason,” Charpentier said. Those customers “would feel they are making a contribution” to the environment.
