Greg Forster, managing director and founder of Embrace Building Wraps
Pioneering spirit
Embrace Building Wraps is a company that is not afraid to go big. The business has overseen some of the largest projects in the UK and in one case the very largest in the world resulting in a Guinness World Record. The company has completed all sorts of projects from printed scaffold wraps, building wraps, graphics for site hoardings and windows, as well as the smaller but just as important work such as property entrances and courtyard banners.
Alongside producing award-winning work, Embrace is a trailblazer for the environment and was the first company to offer and deliver PVC-free printed wraps in the UK.
The list goes on and with all this in mind, it’s hard to believe that the company achieves all this and more with a nimble team of four.
Missing a trick
Embrace was founded by Greg Forster who has amassed two decades of sales and marketing management experience in the out-of-home (OOH) media sector. Forster has worked at well known OOH companies with roles including international sales at JCDecaux Airport and managing director of Clear Channel’s Taxi Media. This knowledge and experience has meant strong foundations for Embrace and the proof is in the pudding with Forster having built a successful and record-breaking business over the past 16 years.
Going back to 2006 and feeling that his name and job title was destined to end up in the cell of a spreadsheet marked ‘redundant’, Forster says he was faced with a few options: feel sorry for himself, go on a long holiday, get a job, or start his own out-of-home media sales house. He opted for the latter and did so successfully, increasing his client’s turnover. However, a self-proclaimed victim of his own success, these same clients were soon being snapped up by global out-of-home media companies and so it was time for Plan B.
The seed for Embrace Building Wraps was planted one sunny Friday afternoon, Forster explains, when he was standing outside The Coach and Horses on Wellington Street in Covent Garden. A shabby-looking scaffold opposite caught his eye. “It was draped in scaffold netting and tired-looking painted hoarding,” Forster says. “I thought ‘that developer is missing a trick here’. Whilst there is no value to a commercial advertiser like BMW or Nike per say, that developer could smartly conceal, disguise, and advertise the development.
“On the Monday morning I was back in central London and walked around the West End and Soho looking for scaffold and hoardings and knocking on site office doors. By the close of the week, I had a good idea of who I needed to be in front of and the rest, as they say, is history.”
And so Embrace Building Wraps was born. A lean team doesn’t mean a limited team with each member offering a variety of skill sets that complement each other; and working with a small number of very experienced sub-contractor and print partners where the relationship goes back two decades, Embrace operates nationally.
A format that was boosted during a period of Covid-19 and lockdowns, Embrace makes use of today’s technology and works completely remotely. “One day we can be in central London, and the next we could be in Gloucester or Glasgow,” Forster explains.
The business has grown steadily over the past five years with the last year being Embrace’s best yet. This year, the company is looking to do the same again trading in seven figures. However, Forster clarifies: “turnover is vanity and profit is reality in my book.” Amidst Embrace’s steady success, the company’s core values have remained the same. “Our core values give us a framework for driving the business forward, influence the daily decisions, and help us enjoy our time at work. It sounds so simple, but all too often companies get caught up in politics, ivory-tower attitudes, and market mania instead of focusing on the things that probably made them successful in the first place!”
First up is integrity and Embrace operates on a ‘we say what we mean, and mean what we say’ ethos. This means sticking to commitments, treating everyone equally, and communicating openly and honestly. Second is customer service and with every investment and decision Embrace makes, it has its customers in mind. “We pull out all the stops to make the satisfaction of our customers paramount,” Forster says. The final value is a simple one – have fun. “We feel it is important to have a sense of humour,” Forster explains. “In this game there are so many interested parties in the chain. Be it an on-site operational restriction lumped on us as we arrive on-site; last minute changes to a client’s design when we are about to hit the print button; or the change of weather preventing us from working safely; we take it on the chin and get on with it as we always, always deliver!”
This ability to deliver, no matter what, comes down to experience and over the years Embrace has amassed 30 policy documents to ensure it maintains its Constructionline Gold Member Level 3, Safe PPQ, PAS 91, SafeContractor, and Social Value certification.
A record breaker
When quizzed on what a ‘typical day’ looks like at Embrace Building Wraps, Forster explains that no two days are the same. “Gone are the days of just wrapping scaffold and site hoardings. We wrap self-adhesive vinyl direct to a variety of surfaces, be it printed brickwork vinyl, a variety of tromp l’oeil designs to mask mobile phone antennas, one-way film glazing, and we even cloaked a sculpture a few months back for Sky TV,” Forster says.
Today, the company offers a comprehensive project management service which can see the team working on a creative design; submitting planning applications; working on-site conducting a site-measured survey; or installing a new project under the watchful eye of operations director Gary Newton. Other jobs can include running print tests for clients and obtaining artwork approval as well as spending a lot of time issuing proposals and RAMS (Risk Assessment Method Statements).
Operations director Gary Newton keeps a watchful eye over installations
How does Embrace complete such a vast range of work to a consistently high standard, I hear you ask? Organisation and persistence, says Forster. “There are lots of robust quality management systems in place to ensure all the right questions are asked at the conception of a project, and flow charts issued to all parties to ensure every aspect is picked up and actioned. I like to think we have everything in place to ensure a smooth, safe, and efficient project from conception, delivery, and cessation.
“The last few years has been tough for everyone. I suppose a five-year stint working on a commission-only sales capacity in my earlier career gets into your blood and stays there. If you did not sell anything you did not eat or pay the rent, let alone go for a beer with your mates.
“It is a case of shutting out the negative noises and plugging away. Persistence pays and adapting accordingly wins the day. As each month passes, we continue our journey of creeping excellence.”
It is a case of shutting out the negative noises and plugging away. Persistence pays and adapting accordingly wins the day. As each month passes, we continue our journey of creeping excellence”
Now, you can have all the organisation and persistence in the world, but it doesn’t mean you are free from inevitable logistical challenges. One project full to the brim of logistical challenges for Embrace was the completion of a printed scaffold wrap around Selfridges & Co on the Bullring in Birmingham. Not just any old building wrap, this job turned out to be world record-breaking with the finished product recognised as the world’s largest printed scaffold wrap. This project saw Embrace call on all its experience and skills with the added obstacle of a global pandemic.
Embrace’s world record-breaking building wrap for Selfridges & Co at Birmingham’s Bullring
“The project was well over a year in planning, and along came Covid!” Forster explains, adding: “Scaffolding was erected and handed over to us section by section by the main scaffolding contractor, allowing our team to install separate panels and to join them and the striking creative design seamlessly.
“During the renovations to the property, the scaffold measured approximately 42m high and 260m long and followed the contours of the building along Moor Street, Park Street, and into Spiceal Street. A network of 24 separate offset frames in a variety of shapes and sizes were installed too from the overall framework comprising of around 6,000 linear metres of scaffold tubes. On average, each printed section measured 371sq m which is about the same size as seven double decker buses – all of which the neighbouring wrap creative had to line up with too!”
The digitally printed banner produced by Embrace covered the entire structure whilst also encapsulating three hoists and a stairway and accommodating apertures around the walkway and supporting steel wires from the adjacent car park. The transformation was finished off with printed ACM DIBOND panels on the site hoarding panels at ground level.
Forster continues: “As the world’s largest scaffold wrap it measured over 8,500sq m and weighed around five tonnes (the previous record was in Spain a few years back at just 5,672sq m). Each dogtooth flower on the creative measured approximately 50sq m. To fully appreciate the scale of the project, the entire banner installation was about half the height of Big Ben and as long as 3.5 Boeing 747 jumbo jets!”
This mega project goes to show that Embrace really does deliver what it sets out to do, even when it’s something that has never been done before. In addition to producing some of the most visually impressive and staggering projects there are, there is another priority close to the company’s heart – sector environmental responsibility.
Green power!
A pioneering company when it comes to the environment, Embrace takes its approach to tackling climate change very seriously. This was demonstrated when the company became the first to offer PVC-free banners as well as implementing carbon offset initiatives.
Embrace says it was the first to offer PVC-free banners like this project on Pimlico Rd
Forster says: “We recognise climate change is a critical global issue which has significant implications of us all. Here at Embrace we ensure that there should never be a conflict between supporting the future of our planet and turning a profit. It is with a great deal of pride that we are playing a role in the transition towards a more sustainable and environmentally improved future through our policies, procedures, and commitments.”
Embrace’s environmental journey really kicked off back in November 2019 with the repurposing of the wraps it removes at the cessation of clients’ displays into the agricultural sector as part of its unique Banner Karma initiative. Embrace also works with the construction sector to reuse its mesh PVC wraps as permeable geotextile membrane alternatives.
“To ensure we maintain a climate positive workforce, we signed up with Ecologi back in December 2020,” Forster continues. “It is also company policy that every time we install a project, we make an additional investment into projects around the globe to remove CO2 emissions from the atmosphere.
It is company policy that every time we install a project, we make an additional investment into projects around the globe to remove CO2 emissions from the atmosphere”
“Every month we plant trees in Mozambique, Madagascar, Nicaragua, and here in the UK. We also fund some of the world’s best climate crisis solutions to offset CO2e such as clean energy through hydropower in Kanungu, Uganda, Geothermal power production in West Java, Indonesia, and converting landfill gas to energy in Northern Turkey.”
As a result of these initiatives, Embrace has to date offset 158.57 tonnes of CO2e and planted 9,217 trees in its global forest with an even mix of mangrove and non-mangrove sites. Collectively, at this number of trees planted, the expected coverage of the Embrace Building Wraps global forest now exceeds 13,000sq m (10% bigger than Trafalgar Square!).
Good people, great clients
All of these achievements beg the question, what is Forster most proud of? Unsurprisingly, the answer is hard to pinpoint. “It’s a blend of building the business from scratch to what it is today with the help of good people and great clients,” he says. “We work in a visual medium and on my laptop I have a folder containing a photo of every project we have ever delivered since the good ship Embrace set sail all those years ago. We have many hundreds of projects under our belt each with their own story.” With this said, Forster’s favourite thing about the company is what he describes as the “Embrace Building Wraps Collective” – the wonderful group of people who all pull together to make it happen. “Whatever is thrown at us, every link in our chain is solid. We all pull in the same direction and we always get the job done to the highest standards,” Forster says.
Looking to the future for Embrace and Forster says the plan is to carry on doing what it does, and to continue to do it well. “We always look at ways to improve on what we do and how we do it. Every project we deliver we make a note of what went well and what we could have done to make it better.
“We will maintain our pioneering spirit. Climate action is important to us and our clients and that is why we invest in this. It is not only good for the planet, it is good for business,” Forster concludes.
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