Product category:
Outdoor and ambient
News Release from: Creative Concern | Subject: Green Billboard
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial
Team on 12 September 2007
World's first living billboard takes
root
Outdoor advertising is set to go green following a revolutionary idea by Manchester agency Creative Concern that replaces carbon-intensive materials with a living hedge of willow trees.
The Green Billboard is a sustainable advertising medium made entirely from willow trees with a range of environmental benefits conventional hoardings cannot offer - reduction of noise pollution, increase in tree coverage and a natural screen for unsightly developments Socially and economically a green billboard can also represent a long-term investment in the landscape with its fresh and unusual organic materials that make for a visual high point for local communities
The first installation of the willow billboard is already in place and can be seen from the M53, situated on a new woodland development in Merseyside at Bidston Moss and follows months of meticulous planning by ethical agency Creative Concern in partnership with Cheviot Trees and fellow design agency Modern Designers.
Questioning the corporate responsibilities of the advertising industry to become more sustainable in its practices, Steve Connor, managing director of Creative Concern, said: "Our urban environments, which are predominately those areas where we see the biggest collections of hoarding, are set to suffer a 'heat island effect' due to climate change.
"The green billboard goes some way to respond to this challenge as well as addressing the problems of air and traffic pollution by utilising trees as a natural filter.
"Finally green hoardings help bring a little bit of nature into the urban realm and offer an antidote to the modern architectural venacular of concrete and steel upon which any kind of advertising or art installation can be mounted".
The natural medium offers the creative community a new challenge, too, according to Modern Designers' Mat Bend: "For the Bidston Moss design, which celebrates the greening of the North West, we've created a billboard that literally allows the leaves of the trees to grow through it, fusing a dramatic and powerful message with the very same medium that is carrying it; green billboards have great potential for innovative design responses, particularly as part of regeneration schemes like this one".
Measuring 30m by 2.5m the only sustainable outdoor advertisement in this world was delivered on behalf of the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA) and the Forestry Commission (FC), and displays the partnership's message: One Tree Is Planted Every Ten Seconds In This Region.
The billboard has been established on a new community woodland area at Bidston Moss on the Wirral Peninsula, one of a number of derelict or under-used sites being reclaimed as part of the Northwest's GBP70 million Newlands programme.
By utilising hand-cut letters fixed onto the hoarding, the organic nature of the NWDA and FC's advertisement will be able to evolve, allowing the branches of the growing willow to show through, becoming an integral part of the green billboard.
And unlike traditional outdoor advertising mediums, including digital and mobile street furniture, the green billboard offers a fresh and innovative communication channel that demonstrates real social and environmental commitment to their customers.
Willow is a fast growing medium that grows into a sizeable, attractive hedge, which can shield development works or passing traffic.
If required, the trees can grow around and inside the billboard element to become part of the advertisement, although they will need pruning on a regular basis.
Green billboard advertisements can be applied to a light timber frame on, paper or wood, or a range of other materials; green hoardings areas are as flexible as standard models.
The size of green billboards is completely flexible although they work best at larger sizes (from 30m long).
Each green hoarding needs a substantial depth of soil to allow the willow to be planted, access to water supply as well as planning permission.
Green hoardings are real willow hedges, and because of this need to rely on the traditional tree-planting season for their installation (October to April).
Newlands at Bidston Moss' in Birkenhead, Wirral is a new 68 hectare community woodland that has been made possible after the Northwest Regional Development Agency provided more than GBP2 million of regeneration funding (April 2006), to transform a significant part of Birkenhead's derelict and underused land into an extensive public recreation space and community woodland.
The Bidston Moss Project partnership includes the NWDA, Forestry Commission North West, Groundwork Wirral, The Mersey Forest, MWDA and Wirral Council.
- To complement NWDA's multimillion-pound funding, additional financial support has been secured from EU Objective One money via the Mersey Forest and Biffaward, a multimillion pound environment fund managed by the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts (RSWT), which utilises landfill tax credits donated by Biffa Waste Services.
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