This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of ProformaGreen, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy. John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.

Proforma Green got our samples in today of the new 8650 V Natural™ Organic Cap by Vitronic Promotional Group, one of our manufacturers.

These caps are great. The 8650 V is a casual unstructured cap made from 100% organic cotton with a Velcro closure and a 3.25″ crown.

The bonus is that they come in multiple colors - Green, Natural (as shown), Soft Blue, Soft Pink and Soft Yellow - and Vitronic can use a sustainable process for dyeing and finishing on these 100% organic cotton caps, so you can show your commitment to the environment.

Read more of this story »

This is a short video we took of Robert De Veau with Hirsch Gift showing the Eco Button at the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) event in Fort Worth last weekend.

Initially I stopped at the Hirsch Gift booth to discuss their new line of bamboo and PET flash drives - yes another vendor is entering the green flash drive market - but then Robert showed me the Eco Button.

The idea is basic. How many hundreds of computers are in your average office block? How many hours are those computers on during the day when people are not using them?

Read more of this story »

I mentioned before in this blog that the gym and spa industry is one of the main buyers of sport bottles. It makes sense, sign-up for a membership, get a water bottle and t-shirt.

I also mentioned that the BPA scare pretty much halted the market for plastic gym bottles. This was an event especially felt by eco-friendly gyms, yoga studios and spas that had been using bottles as giveaway items. Many businesses gave up on plastic altogether and moved to aluminum or steel bottles.

Well the industry is fighting back with BPA free bottles especially designed for gyms - like Glass America’s 19 oz. Treadmill BPA Free Bottle - bottles designed with wide mouths and easy grips.

These new bottles also have the words “BPA free” imprinted directly on them to make sure the audience does not miss the fact these are “safe” bottles.

We will see how well these new bottle designs do. It is nice to see the industry bouncing back in this area and at the same time moving forward on green products.

For more information on BPA free bottles from Glass America please visit their website or visit us at Proformagreen.com.

The Verve line of organic cotton promotional t-shirts from Vantage Apparel seems to be going for the title of most green t-shirt available.

Like many other organic shirts in the promotional items industry Vantage starts with a non-bleached t-shirt made from organic cotton (i.e. no pesticides or petroleum fertilizers used to grow the cotton). At this point the shirt is similar to other organic shirts, like the AnvilOrganic line from Anvil Knit Wear (which by the way does come in different colors than just “natural”).

Read more of this story »

This is a guest post by John Simonetta, owner of ProformaGreen, an eco-friendly promotional items consultancy. John’s blogs are designed to keep us up to date on the “greening” of his industry.

Leed’s is teaming up with AmericanForests.org. “Leed’s makes a donation to American Forest’s Global ReLeaf program for every EcoSmart imprint order we produce”.

The thing I like about this new deal is that you don’t have to do anything extra. If the client purchases Leed’s EcoSmart promotional items the donation is automatically made.

Simple. But….

Read more of this story »

Using video, still photography and audio recordings, GLP creates case study documents which they then promote on their website and through “online content partners.” In 2008, GLP’s projects focused on sustainable businesses in Africa and included luxury safari lodges, a bicycle program for Rwandan coffee growers and the business practices of banana boat retailers. They have three international expeditions to Africa and South America planned and are then planning a domestic production schedule for the fall.

Read more of this story »