Sustainable POS: Choosing Lower-Impact Materials

Much point-of-sale material has a short life. A promotional floor unit may stand for a few weeks before it is thrown away, in every store in the estate. Choosing lower-impact POS is mostly about decisions made before anything is printed: what an item is made of, whether its parts can be separated, how long it needs to last and what happens to it afterwards. It also means being clear about what UK rules do, and don't, say about POS.

Start with the material

For temporary POS, corrugated board and other paper-based materials have a practical advantage: the route for recycling them is well established. Defra's UK statistics on waste, updated in September 2026, show that paper and cardboard packaging achieved an 84.1% recycling rate in 2024, against 53.5% for plastic packaging. Provisional figures for 2025 are 80.3% and 57.3%. Those figures cover packaging, not POS, but they show where collection and reprocessing are strongest.

Stores have to separate their waste, too:

• England: GOV.UK's Simpler Recycling guidance says that since 31 March 2025 all workplaces, retail included, must separate dry recyclables (plastic, metal, glass, paper and card), food waste and non-recyclable waste. Micro-firms have until 31 March 2027.
• Scotland: Zero Waste Scotland says the Waste (Scotland) Regulations have been in force since 1 January 2014 and that organisations "should be recycling their plastic, metal, glass, paper and card or risk a fine".
• Wales: the Welsh Government's workplace recycling law requires paper and card to be separated for collection.

A board unit that store staff can flatten and put straight into the paper and card stream fits the way stores already have to handle waste. GOV.UK's Simpler Recycling guidance also lists polystyrene packaging, and plastics labelled "compostable" or "biodegradable", among items that cannot typically go in dry recycling collections.

Avoid mixed materials that can't be separated

A board unit with a plastic laminate, glued-in plastic trays or a foam-board header is harder to recycle than one made from a single material. Where you need more than one material, design the parts to come apart by hand: slotted rather than glued.

This affects what you can say, as well as what you can recycle. The Competition and Markets Authority's Green Claims Code says businesses must not claim a product is "recyclable" if it is not, "or if only parts of it are and others are not, preventing recycling". One of its examples is a bamboo container with a plastic inner glued inside it. The Code's principles include that claims "must be truthful and accurate" and "must not omit or hide important relevant information". It also notes that the medium, such as information provided "within a retail store", may constrain how much can be said, and points to other routes such as a QR code. If your POS carries environmental messages, check them against the Code.

Permanent fixtures or temporary units

This is a practical choice rather than a regulatory one. A temporary board unit is light, quick to produce in volume and easy to recycle, but a new one is made for every campaign. A permanent fixture, such as a metal gondola end or a frame with changeable graphics, costs more to make once but can carry many campaigns, with only the graphics replaced each time.

Compare like with like:

• How many campaigns will the fixture realistically carry before the next store refit?
• Can graphics be changed without replacing the structure?
• Who stores, maintains and repairs it between campaigns?
• At the end of its life, can it be refurbished, moved to another store or recycled?

What the packaging rules cover, and what they don't

Defra's statistics note that packaging extended producer responsibility (pEPR) "came into force on 1 January 2025". GOV.UK's guidance defines packaging as "any material that is used to contain, protect, handle, deliver or present goods supplied to an end user", and says it "includes pallets, display units and anything that's designed to be filled at the point of sale".

The UK regulators' agreed positions (version 8, dated 25 February 2026) add detail. Their table of specific items lists display stands as not packaging "unless being used for a packaging function prior to being used for display (for example, for transport of goods)". Elsewhere the same document describes cardboard boxes "used to house stock on shelves in shops" as secondary packaging, and it says items that perform a packaging function but are not listed "are presumed to be packaging unless the producer can provide adequate justification".

A display box that holds stock looks like packaging under these rules; a stand-alone display stand may not be. Check each item rather than the category.

Obligations also depend on size. GOV.UK says a business is obligated if it supplied or imported more than 25 tonnes of packaging in the previous year and had turnover of £1 million or more. Large producers, with more than 50 tonnes and more than £2 million turnover, must report every 6 months and pay a waste disposal fee for household packaging. Ask your compliance team or scheme how your POS items are treated.

FSC chain of custody: what it tells you

FSC describes chain of custody certification as the way it verifies that forest-based materials produced to its standards "are credibly used along the product's path from the forest to becoming finished goods". The FSC label on a finished product signals that the requirements were met "at every step in the supply chain, from sourcing to distribution". Certified organisations must identify and track FSC-certified material through manufacturing and distribution and keep records, and FSC says its own offices "do not issue certificates": independent certification bodies do.

Two points follow. If you want the FSC label on your POS, ask your supplier for its certificate. And FSC says most retailers that don't manufacture finished goods do not need chain of custody certification, describing a promotional licence as "a better fit". FSC certification is about where the fibre comes from; recyclability is a separate question.

A short checklist

1. One material wherever possible, or parts that separate by hand.
2. Finishes that keep board units recyclable.
3. Reusable structures with changeable graphics for campaigns that recur.
4. Quantities set per store, so less is printed only to be thrown away.
5. Environmental claims that are specific and accurate.
6. Materials and weights recorded for every item.

Talking to us

If you are reviewing the materials in your POS programme, we are happy to talk through the options for your stores and campaigns.

Sources

1. UK statistics on waste, GOV.UK (Defra) (accessed 27 October 2026)
2. Simpler Recycling: workplace recycling in England, GOV.UK (accessed 27 October 2026)
3. Waste (Scotland) Regulations, Zero Waste Scotland (accessed 27 October 2026)
4. Workplace recycling, Welsh Government (accessed 27 October 2026)
5. Making environmental claims on goods and services (Green Claims Code), GOV.UK (Competition and Markets Authority) (accessed 27 October 2026)
6. Extended producer responsibility for packaging: who is affected and what to do, GOV.UK (accessed 27 October 2026)
7. pEPR Regulators' Agreed Positions and Technical Interpretations, Version 8, Environment Agency, SEPA, NRW and NIEA (National Packaging Waste Database) (accessed 27 October 2026)
8. Chain of custody certification, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) (accessed 27 October 2026)