Performance and customization: the key RADIGREEN® features take centre stage at FSB 2015

From 27 to 30 October 2015, RadiciGroup’s ancestral company Tessiture Pietro Radici SpA (TPR) is once again at FSB, the international fair for amenity areas, sports and pool facilities, in Cologne, Germany, where it is showcasing the RADIGREEN® range of polyamide and polyolefin artificial grass yarn.

High performance, maximum freedom of customization, and safety. These are the distinctive RADIGREEN® features that RadiciGroup is focusing on at FSB 2015. The RADIGREEN® yarn range is developed to best meet customer needs and is thus the ideal choice for any use within their scope of application. RadiciGroup’s specific expertise, its long tradition in the synthetic turf sector and its highly flexible manufacturing organization allow it to walk its customers step-by-step through the development process to achieve the best customized solutions according to end-use specifications.
Tailor-made projects are RadiciGroup’s passion! Customized products, formulated with special additives, capable of delivering characteristics according to specifications and maximum performance during use. RADIGREEN® yarns are designed and developed in close synergy with customers: starting from the definition of the specific needs and requirements to the design, sampling, testing and industrial trials. Technical assistance is guaranteed at every step of the process, and production and deliveries are always on time.

RADIGREEN® FOR LANDSCAPING
In the case of landscaping applications – artificial grass for either outdoor and indoor use, residential or commercial installations, fair areas or special design projects –, choosing yarn from the RADIGREEN® product range means choosing the utmost level of creativity, innovation, customization and production flexibility, and safety. RadiciGroup’s Radigreen® polyamide and polyolefin fibres feature performance characteristics that make them ideal for the manufacture of turf with high durability and excellent appearance. Just one example is the My Radigreen® yarn range: exclusive “All In One” combinations of straight and textured monofilaments that give turf makers freedom of creativity, maximum production flexibility and choice from a wide range of colours. Among the main benefits of using artificial grass are reduced water consumption, minimal maintenance, no use of pesticides, an evergreen lawn and maximum creative customization.

Outdoor synthetic turf can bring value to public and private spaces alike, opening up possibilities for unexpected uses of such places and making outside areas more liveable – all with maximum design creativity. Currently the MY Radigreen® range includes: straight PE monofilament + textured PP monofilament, straight PE monofilament + textured PE monofilament, and straight PE monofilament + textured PA monofilament.

Quality and safety first… To develop high-quality, high-performance products while ensuring the health and safety of end users is of central importance to RadiciGroup. This concrete commitment is an integral part of the Group’s corporate policy.
Tessiture Pietro Radici has spared no efforts or resources in the field of safety, particularly to reduce the content of lead and other heavy metals in the pigments used for its yarns. Today, Tessiture Pietro Radici has embarked on another important project on the same front: certifying its yarn in accordance with the protocol recently introduced by the European Synthetic Turf Organisation (ESTO) to assist in assessing the level of quality and safety of synthetic turf landscaping carpets for outdoor use (see related document SYNTHETIC TURF LANDSCAPING FLOOR COVERINGS FOR OUTDOOR USE – ESTO QUALITY CLASSIFICATION).

“The ESTO Landscape Quality Classification,” said Marianna Panico, R&D manager of Tessiture Pietro Radici, “provides guidance in assessing the level of quality of synthetic landscaping products, by establishing criteria and methods for measuring characteristics such as the UV resistance of the materials, minimum discoloration, resilience and heavy metal content. This tool will allow for assessing the quality and safety of landscaping turf by putting these two characteristics on the same footing as appearance and feel in the scale of importance.”
“Developing high-quality, safe products is in the DNA of our company,” Ms. Panico continued. “Our yarn, not only for sport applications but also landscaping, has always been made using certified raw materials. Thus, we are ready for this new challenge, so to speak, launched by ESTO – of which Tessiture Pietro Radici is a founding member. We are planning to wrap up the certification process by the end of 2016.”

The European Synthetic Turf Organisation (ESTO) is an association formed to ensure quality synthetic turf and to provide information on and promote the use of artificial grass, and to help clients and end-users find the most appropriate solutions in synthetic turf systems for their needs. ESTO is a forum for researchers, clubs, leagues and sport governing bodies, local and national offices and councils, groups representing end users and the widest group of synthetic turf suppliers. ESTO is an organisation that brings everyone together to discuss, debate, research and develop the future of synthetic turf. www.estc.info

RADIGREEN® FOR SPORT
In developing yarn for synthetic turf pitches and fields in the sport sector – football, tennis, golf, hockey, 5-a–side football, American football, rugby –, RadiciGroup’s objective is to fulfil the primary requirement of these applications: to develop fibres that last over time, keeping the technical characteristics of the turf unchanged for the longest time possible and preventing degradation caused by the sun’s radiation.

The performance features of RADIGREEN® yarn are fully up to the task of ensuring the durability and retention of playing characteristics. Tessiture Pietro Radici’s product development work – from the choice of polymer and processing technology to the definition of the cross-section shape of the yarn – has focused on making high-durability, high-weavability yarn, while keeping in mind the ease of installation and maintenance of the synthetic turf. An example of this type of yarn is RADIGREEN® HD PE, a fibrillated yarn made with special polymers specifically designed to achieve high tear resistance. The main features of this product are: loom-weavability, ease of installation and maintenance, and high wear resistance over time. TPR production technology produces clean and precise fibrillation, which is essential to prevent the fibre from weakening. RADIGREEN® HD PE yarn can withstand prolonged stress by developing a self-twisting property, a helix effect that strengthens the yarn during its use by increasing resilience and split resistance. RADIGREEN® HD PE yarn ensures a uniform playing surface with good resilience and ball roll. One of the feathers in RadiciGroup’s cap for the sport sector is the RADIGREEN® MFL range of PT and PE monofilaments, products capable of delivering maximum performance on the playing field. RADIGREEN® MFL PA, the polyamide version of this yarn, puts RadiciGroup in a unique position among its main competitors. Thanks to the successful combination of its knowledge of raw materials, the production process and the final application, RadiciGroup is uniquely positioned to design, develop and manufacture new formulations of nylon resin monofilament, like RADIGREEN® MFL PA, and meet the ever more stringent quality and safety requirements of end users. Quality and safety are two distinctive features of RADIGREEN® yarn, which are guaranteed by both RadiciGroup know-how and the certification issued by external FIFA-accredited certifying bodies. The PE version of the RADIGREEN® MFL range is available in a wide variety of cross-section shapes endowing the filament with excellent weavability and ensuring the carpet’s ease of installation, excellent wear resistance and high resilience over time. RADIGREEN® MFL PE carpets are soft and pleasant to the touch like natural grass. They are soft, but always resistant; they do not cause skin abrasion, yet ensure excellent resilience. The UFO cross-section shape has been recently added to the more traditional RADIGREEN® MFL PE shapes – ALBATROS, LOB, MAJOR, PAT, S-CORE.

RADIGREEN® MFL PE UFO is the answer to the specific market request for yarn with a thickness greater than 400 microns.
This particular feature makes the yarn suitable for use on playing surfaces for which the main requirement is to have reduced, yet constant, ball roll values.

OUR SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
September 2015: RadiciGroup has once again lived up to its commitment to transparent communication with its stakeholders by releasing its 2014 Sustainability Report, which gives as faithful as possible a picture of the Group’s industrial activities and achievements in economic, social and environmental sustainability.
For the fourth year in a row, the RadiciGroup Sustainability Report has obtained external assurance at the GRI B+ Application Level of conformity to the Sustainability Reporting guidelines (Ver. 3.1) issued by the Global Reporting Initiative, the most widely accepted global standard for non-financial reporting.

Concrete actions and results on the sustainability front: a few figures…

128 million euros: Investments during the 2010-2014 period to support Group company competitiveness through: research and development, product and service innovation, plant and technology maintenance and introduction of the best available technologies (BAT), improvement in production efficiency, improvement in product and service quality, assurance of employee health and workplace safety. 2.5 million euros: Investments in 2014 just for the environment and safety. –26%: Percentage reduction in total direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions in 2014 compared to 2013. The percentage reduction in total direct emissions in 2014 was –46%. The percentage reduction in total direct emissions in the 2010-2014 five-year period was –78%.
45.3%: The percentage of RadiciGroup’s 2014 energy consumption from renewable resources (mostly hydroelectric energy). In 2013, the percentage was 44.3%. 63%: The percentage of water saved in 2014. www.radicigroup.com/en/documentation/corporate/report