Green Options

Evening Breeze sustainable bedIt’s summer in the Northern hemisphere, and for many, that means going on holiday to warm, tropical locales. And using air conditioning. Lots of it. In fact, in some tropical places, nearly 80% of energy use in a hotel room is for air conditioning. 1200 to 2000 watts on average.

Evening Breeze is an interesting solution: It’s a canopy bed that has adjustments for both temperature and humidity, and delivers it quietly, overhead, using only 400 watts. As [...]

It wasn’t exactly a quite hush that settled over the San Francisco’s Moscone Center for the 50th PCBC convention but the crowds and exhibitors for this annual builders convention came in about one-half of last year. Nonetheless, in this era of minimalism and slimming down the show offered an array of notable speakers and some innovative products. Now of course, with the slogan “The New Age of Innovation” we hoped for more progressive Green products and not just in a marketing sense.

On the creatively intriguing side, we walked into the Icynene Inc. display booth only knowing that they create their Icynene LD-R-50 spray foam insulation partially from Castor oil. Honestly, we didn’t exactly know the origin of Castor oil. Castor oil comes from Castor beans (not true beans from Castor plant) and don’t serve a normal food source, so not food for insulation here. Castor crops don’t require pesticides or fungicides or even water to grow and are rapidly renewable. For this insulation, they use 15 percent castor oil (and unfortunately 85 percent polyglycol, which in our eyes is like using B15 biodiesel. Fifteen percent is better than zero percent but still a long way to go. This product helps eliminate dust, pollen and contains no VOCs as it is water blown. Most traditional cellulose insulation comes from 80% newspaper (up to100% post-consumer recycled) and 20% binders and fire-retardants, commonly borax, boric acid, sulfuric acid, ammonium sulfates and/or other chemical compounds. Smell the goodness.

By contributing guest author Ida Cheinman, Principal and Creative Director of Substance 151, a strategic design agency for Green Printer’s “Design Goes Green” series.

We live in a time when “sustainability” is topping the buzzword charts and a wave of greenwashing is flooding the mainstream. We live in a time of intense competition, gloomy economic forecasts and rapidly disappearing marketing budgets, but also in a time when more and more companies and organizations strive to uphold higher environmental and social values, making the shift to the triple bottom line economic model. Sustainability and social responsibility are the forces that drive many of today’s business decisions; they also change the way organizations re-think their branding and marketing strategies. As marketers and business leaders, we are faced with the challenge of finding differentiation by creating empowering and memorable brand experiences for our audiences in the increasingly crowded sustainable marketplace.

So, What are the rules?

These days it seems everybody has some sort of recycled/eco friendly paper offering. So what’s the big deal about a Swedish offering making it’s US debut on Earth Day this year?

White Lines factory reuses their carbon emissions in a closed loop, making for zero CO2 emissions, for one. Then they offset what they can’t reuse (transportation, etc) via planting trees in Africa, as coordinated by environmental consultancy U&W (interestingly pronounced “You & We” in Swedish) The wood used for the [...]

Green Printer speaks with Sigrid Albert, Principal and Art Director of StepUp Communications, a company that focuses on creative services for internal communications.

A post by contributing writer Melissa Chungfat.

Some of your clients integrate sustainability in their business. What advice would you give to green start-up businesses in terms of identity and design?

Having a clear vision and direction for your company is the first step. From there, you can create your visual identity. Green businesses already have clear values to communicate, which makes it easier to design for them. Their visual identity should reflect what the business does and the best thing is for them to follow through with their promise. Be clear about what your strengths are and the direction your business is going, and designers can help with that process.

By Contributing Writer Melissa Chungfat | Part of Green Printer’s ‘Design Goes Green’ dispatch.

While more people are cutting back during the recession, green sales still remain strong with companies that have positioned themselves well in branding and marketing. It’s a topic that the much anticipated April 20th PSFK “Creativity for Change, Ideas to Make Things Better” conference in New York City will be speaking about as part of their sustainable and socially conscience agenda.

Recently, GreezBiz.com reported on a survey that revealed, “68 percent of consumers say that even in a recession they would remain faithful to a brand if it supports a good cause; nearly seven in 10 would be prepared to pay more for eco-friendly products.” Buyers plan to remain loyal to products that they perceive to have strong social value.

By Contributing Writer Melissa Chungfat.

Design Goes Green - The first of a series of articles by Green Printer on the cross-section between the environment, business and the creative communications industry.

Every day we hear about companies going under and pub meals having more value than bank stocks. At at time when profits are low across the nation, some company executives think that now is not the time to implement environmental initiatives. So why did companies committed to sustainability in 2008 perform better that those that didn’t?

Management consulting firm A.T. Kearney did a study comparing the performances of  99 companies with strong commitments to sustainability against industry averages from May to November 2008. Companies that leaned towards green outperformed industry averages by 15% over the six months in 16 of the 18 industries.

“My name is Greg Barber and I specialize in environmental printing. ” This is the first line on the homepage of Greg Barber Company, an eco-friendly printer and also the printer that prints Eco-Libris’ stickers and flyers.

Natural Pod, one of our favorite online natural toy companies, has introduced a wooden kitchen series just in time for the upcoming holiday season. With options such as the Chef’s Kitchen, Chef’s Kitchen and Hutch, and the Chef’s Portable Kitchen, these large wooden toys will inspire and delight any child.  Best of all, these products are made Canada and carry the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) ecolabel, which verifies the wood comes from well-managed forests.

My children love the Chef’s Portable Kitchen.  It was designed by Natural Pod and is made on Vancouver Island, British Columbia with a combination of Europly, Birch, Oak, Fir and Purple Heart and finished in natural beeswax.  Purple heart is one of my favorite woods, so I was delighted to see the details done in this unique wood. The portable kitchen is rather large at 32 inches across, making it easy for several children to work cooperatively and share this unique, wooden toy.

It was when Jennifer Stambolsky was planning her own wedding that she found a lack of wedding invitations for the modern bride that were both gorgeous & eco-friendly. With a love of nature combined with a love of beautiful stationery, she launched EarthlyAffair.com.

Choose from two environmentally friendly papers, a premium 100% Recycled Post Consumer Recycled paper that uses no new trees and a heavyweight 60% Recycled (30% Post Consumer) Cotton paper that is Forest Stewardship Counsel certified. All envelopes are made of 100% post consumer waste, FSC certified and processed without the use of chlorine. Not only that but they are a carbon neutral business purchasing CO2 offsets for emissions caused by conducting business and shipping through carbonfund.org.

Image source: Ecofriend.org

A Green Printer Online Dispatch

Do you scoff at company-made labels (i.e. internal labels) and only go for the non-profit, third party born eco-labels when buying green office supplies? Or do you take both with a grain of salt, comparing the merits of “private” and “public” labels?

If you’re the latter or if you are a green procurer, you probably want to streamline the “boom! done, I’m buying that product - not [...]