Taking trucks off the road

Cube Modular is a specialist designer and manufacturer of modular portable buildings that can be folded down and stacked for transportation, greatly reducing the number of trucks needed to move them. Access caught up with MD Brandon Weston to discuss the company’s focus on sustainability

Worcester-based Cube Modular has supplied temporary buildings to more than 50 events this year, with around 1,000 units rented. Among its biggest clients in recent months have been Glastonbury with nearly 200 units, Formula E at ExCeL London with 109 building units, and Cornwall’s Boardmasters with 99.

Among the many stackable building solutions the company offers are ‘event hotels’ with two ensuite bedrooms, and a pop-up ticket office solution that can be folded down and stacked to enable 40 units to be transported on a single truck.

How integral is sustainability within your business in general and your offering, and why?

Sustainability has always been a key part of our vision for the Cube group of companies, and we have been lucky enough to be able to build sustainable practices from the ground up. The founders of Cube all have children, and they share the growing desire of people around the globe to leave our planet in a state that is fit for future generations.

The beauty of our flagship product, the Continest building system, is that it offers a genuine reduction in C02 emissions, not just carbon offsetting, through reduced transport requirements. Transporting cabins folded down and stacked reduces the number of trucks on the road damaging the environment and at the same time makes for cheaper transport costs for our clients –a win all round.

You supplied 109 units to this year’s Formula E London event, were all the elements stackable and what impact did that have in terms of  truck-use savings?

The cabins we supplied are all stackable once folded down and they measure under two feet tall in the stacked position. This means that we can safely stack five units high on an HGV lorry in the space that a single unit would normally occupy. In this way we transport 10 of our larger 20ft cabins or 20 of our smaller 10ft cabins on one lorry. In the case of Formula E, we used 14 trucks in total instead of the usual 55 required to transport an equivalent number of fixed framed buildings. In other words, 41 trucks were taken off the road as a result of using our system.

How has the product range offering been expanded and what is the strategy going forward?

The Continest system has been developed this year to offer box office and retail versions. Our aim is to be a one-stop-shop for event organisers for all of their infrastructure needs, and we are now in a position to provide this. We’ve expanded our range of flat-pack structures by introducing Snoozy pods. These were originally conceived as glamping pods and they comfortably sleep two people on single beds but they can be transported flat up to 40 on one truck. We’ve extended the Snoozy range to include a ticket office model. Going forward we are developing an alternative demountable and stackable sleeping pod called the Maverick. It’s making an appearance at Big Feastival, and one or two other festivals, so we can gauge the market.

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