Working at height is a high risk activity, whether it takes place on a building site, while cleaning windows or arranging displays at shopping centres. Compliance with health and safety guidelines is crucial in order to protect staff but also to ensure that organisations do not land themselves in hot water with health and safety officials. Luckily, there is now technology that can help.

One such company offering new systems to help retailers to fill lofty spaces is EcoRIG. The company’s portfolio consists of EcoRIG Grid (to hang props – launched in New Look, Westfield London), EcoRIG Graphic (to suspend graphic banners – also launched in New Look, Westfield London) and the EcoRig Platform which has allowed in-store staff at Mamas & Papas at Westfield to create a stylish window display that they can design and put together on the ground and then raise. The mechanics of the system have consequently eradicated the need for staff to working at dangerous heights using ladder and cherrypickers.

EcoRIG worked with Four IV and Mamas & Papas’ head of store design Tim Richardson to design the system, which encorporates a electrically-operated platform system with illuminated shelving at either side of the 8m high glass fronted bay, to complement the Mamas & Papas store design.

Richardson says the partnership has enabled them to push the boundaries on window displays. The system has allowed them “to deliver an aspirational window design in a challenging 8m high space was a highly effective operational and flexible system,” he comments.

David Warner, director at EcoRIG, says retailers can use such innovative technologies to make use of the space they have, but which is sometimes out of reach. “With the exploration of high roof and ceiling lines, out of reach spaces and atria are an asset to retailers and should be used and embraced to encourage the customer to start their shopping journey and walk across their threshold. Double height window spaces should be used, not only from an aesthetic and visual perspective, but from a navigational and commercial point of view too.”