Making Wide Format more Sustainable is not an Immaterial Issue. An interview with Nova Abbott, Kavalan.
Nova Abbott heads up the marketing team for Kavalan, a range of sustainable printable media designed for wide-format printing. In this interview, we look at the issue of sustainability in wide format printing and what needs to change to make the entire sector more environmentally positive.
Tell us about your background
I am originally from Taiwan and have worked and lived in the UK for over 15 years. I was introduced to print with my time at FESPA. I joined FESPA in 2007 to help launch FESPA Asia in Bangkok, which was very successful! That was my first involvement with print and it certainly changed my impression about printing as I only ever used to think about desktop Inkjet printing. So it amazed me to discover how the screen and digital print was everywhere and I found it really inspiring.
What are you doing now?
Taya, a Shanghai-based business was one of my accounts when I was at FESPA and I stayed in touch with Vincent Lin who is the second generation of the family business. When I relocated back to Taiwan 4 years ago to be closer to my family, he contacted me about Kavalan, a new product range they had developed. Kavalan has a sustainable profile and is a range of 0% PVC eco-friendly product.
Vincent wanted to see what I may be able to do to help develop and launch Kavalan into the market. This was back in 2016. I gave them suggestions and made a plan and initially thought that he would take the plans and do it himself. I assumed that would be the end of it! But he wanted me to do more. So initially I did this on a part-time basis and now I run the marketing and sales team full time.
We launched Kavalan at FESPA Hamburg in 2017. We wanted to show people the eco-friendly substrate possibilities and give the product a strong and clear identity.
Why Kavalan? What does it mean?
Kavalan is the name of one of the 14 aboriginal tribes in Taiwan. Kavalan was the last surviving one. Eventually, the aboriginal tribes were converted into Chinese culture - but it is their spirit which we wanted to have in the face of the challenge of climate change. The Kavalan clan was based in the northeast of Taiwan, which is where the founder of the company is from. This means a great deal for him as it is where he started everything for Taya, 30 years ago.
Do you sense the environment is a big issue again?
Definitely yes. Taya has been an OEM for big brands in Europe for some time. I’m sorry, but we cannot name the companies. They chose us because of the quality and the R&D ability that we have as well as our strong customer-facing culture.
This is why they chose to work with us.
PVC has started to become a problem for some of our large format customers and we can see a future where PVC becomes a specialist application.
Since the launch of Kavalan in the past 3 years, more visitors are coming to us to ask us about how they can use Kavalan for the big consumer brands. Retailers want to buy the right materials. These are big-name brands such as Coke, Chanel and Gucci and they have a significant influence on their supply chain.
Where is this demand coming from?
The pressure is coming from the end-user. Consumers are driving the need to change. For them, it is an image thing. People just do not want to look bad and do the wrong thing. This is a growing concern and will not go away. It’s a great trend. It’s positive and we see a future now for sustainable products and developments and this can only be a good thing. The main thing is that by producing Kavalan we want to make a difference, a positive contribution.
For example, we also contribute to non-profit charity working associations. We have done some fundraising for this and will be working with them to give % of our revenue to development work for the ocean clean-up project. We don’t want to do ‘lip service’, we care about it! It is not just marketing and end-users want this. Our real intention is to change how the current wide-format industry is using materials.
The environment is important but so too is price. We want to demonstrate a way around it and that you do not have to break the bank to be eco-friendly. We can show with our business that we care about the environment but through sustainable innovation linked to demand, we can economically benefit as a result of our actions. If our competitors follow then that is great too as this will accelerate change.
Are the Kavalan products cost comparable or are they more expensive?
It does cost more, as ingredients are more expensive. But the product is cleaner and it is more advanced. But comparing the 2, the European brands see it is still cost-effective. You can do landfill or incineration (recommend as the change to energy) or recycle. But Kavalan is a material that is kind to the environment.
So it is a textile?
Yes, it has a polyester backing with PA Coating (polyacrylic which is a water-based chemical when it is finished. It is a part of nature).
How is the Kavalan business growing?
From nothing, Kavalan has grown to represent 5% of the total revenue of the company and it has inspired us to want to reduce the use of PVC even more. Advertising messages is seasonal as brands change graphics and marketing messages approximately once a month or every quarter. Which means that the rate of change is too fast so it doesn’t make sense to use PVC materials.
So is PVC is bad in your view?
PVC is not evil. But when it is used wrongly, for instance, in the advertising industry, then yes, it is very bad. Vincent calculated that in 2018 in Europe, PVC materials use equated to approx. 340,200,000 m 2 for printing alone – that is enough banner to cover 12,300 Old Trafford Stadiums in 2018. And this is a conservative figure! This is a huge amount of material to then place into landfill.
How do we change this, do you still think that we have to educate people?
Yes, we do need to enthuse about the possibilities and not be negative and talk down to people. We need to show a different way, not act like we are better. We need inspiration, communication and education. This year, myself and my team will be pulling together a document which is an environment declaration that will openly compare the Kavalan product with PVC materials. I think that research is important to help people trust the information and understand the value, so they know more easily what is good and bad. It will then be easier for people to comprehend. We will still want to educate people with the message for the industry. Kavalan is the only brand which has a whole range of printing for the wide format industry as a direct replacement for the PVC sector to replace like with like. It can be done, it’s just that people either do not have the necessary information or they are uncomfortable with change. Both are strong challenges but it’s not an impossible challenge particularly as consumer change is pulling us all in this direction.
We need to do more is to get the message out there even more – this environmental declaration will help the process to educate the industry.
In your view, can you be both capitalist and environmentally positive?
Yes, there is a win: win formula for this.
But most printers, I don’t think are environmental by nature. They will only do it if their customers want it which is not a bad thing as their customers do want it then they are forced to care. They are beginning to demand and then they become educated the quicker that the change will happen. I think we need more leading printers to adopt the opportunity and show the way, and then the rest will follow.
What more needs to change?
Use more Kavalan!!!
Seriously, my point of view is that the first year people were curious about the Kavalan product. The team were international - they couldn’t work out Kavalan as it was new. They couldn’t work out where we were from in the world - so yes - people who stopped by our FESPA booth were happy as they discovered us.
There is not a lot of new things on the market as it doesn’t change that much. The eco issue has driven them to want to know more about us. Taya is a company from Taiwan - they think Chinese and Taiwanese produced is unusual as they assume that we don’t care about the environment. This was a hurdle that we had to overcome and still do to some extent. We educated people about our vision and commitment and Kavalan in Taiwan. At the end of last year, we can see a change as people are more receptive - a combination of more demand - brands asking for it so a willingness to find out more. Our environmental message is beginning to resonate with them with a combination.
What plans do you have for the future?
We need to do more to educate people. We need to connect with thought leaders and also start thinking outside of the ‘printing boxes’. Also, we need more collaboration inside and outside the sector directly with the end-users by attending the print events but also the non-printing industry exhibitions and events and the key to facilitate and speed up adoption to be green.
Despite the obvious challenges of launching a new range of products and growing the business, we are very pleased with how well Kavalan is doing up to now and we are looking forward to a positive future by helping the wide format printing sector to become more environmentally positive. It’s a big challenge but one that we think has a great contribution to change in a positive way and in the process helping ‘future proof’ our business in the process!
For more information on Kavalan check out the website