Green Options

An interesting article in The Wall Street Journal, Six Products, Six Carbon Footprints, highlights the next trend in green marketing, calculating and promoting the supply chain carbon footprint.

Never mind that the average consumer isn’t actually aware or at least has a pretty fuzzy grasp of what exactly a carbon footprint is, manufacturers are busily calculating away. And, they are finding some fairly interesting facts.

Leather, milk and meat from cows pack a pretty big carbon footprint: The average dairy cow produces, every year, an amount of greenhouse gas equivalent to four tons of carbon dioxide, according to U.S. government figures. Most of that comes not from carbon dioxide, in fact, but from a more-potent greenhouse gas: methane.

The recipe for a low-carbon load of laundry: Use liquid detergent instead of powder.

… a six-pack’s carbon footprint was about seven pounds. The real surprise was where the bulk of that number came from: the refrigeration of the beer at stores.

I actually found some of these things pretty interesting too, but as a marketer, I have different questions. I’m wondering if this will be the next wave in green marketing. I’m wondering if we will really be able to educate consumers that much about the manufacturing process. I’m wondering if they will care.

At this point my gut feel is that this WILL become a trend. Consumers will react to carbon footprint information. Leather will be out. Mothers will switch to soy and rice milk (even more than they currently are). Powder detergent will become passé.

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.

JournalBooks is doing stunning custom work with nearly 100% total recycled materials in their notebook and spiral journal products.

Really some of their stuff is just flat amazing and a great way to take green printing and marketing to a whole new level.

For printing JournalBooks uses plant based inks which they claim are better than soy based inks for reproduction quality and are harmless to the environment.

JournalBooks compares the impact of their plant based inks to that of vegetable oil.

The JournalBook Classic journals have 100% recycled covers. Even the poly covers - recycled milk cartons - in the classic line are completely recycled.

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.

There were a number of green and eco-friendly flash drives on display at the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) event in Fort Worth last weekend including the T530 Riclado made from 100% Recycled PVC and show at the event by Hirsch Gift.

Hirsch lists these items as being made from post-consumer materials that have completed their life cycle and would otherwise have been disposed of as solid waste.

Hirsch also points out the T530 casing is manufactured with post-consumer recyclables collected in commercial & residential recycling programs. That is a nice touch for Ecopreneurists looking for a local tie-in.

Of course I am assuming the PVC is a fungible commodity so although the PVC comes from commercial & residential recycling programs there is no telling if they come from your local commercial & residential recycling programs.

Like most flash drives the T530 is RoHS compliant.

Hirsch was also showing off their cherry wood and bamboo drives.

We have a number of loyal readers of this blog in the green apparel industry and its rapid growth is yielding rewards for ecopreneurs targeting the variety of consumers that I mentioned in my post, The 4 Green Fashion Consumers – Which One For You?

The Living Green consumer, who has embraced the whole concept of the environmental lifestyle

The Core Fashionista, “who is looking to build up the green in her fashion portfolio,”.

The Walking Green consumers, “driven by wanting to belong to a greater community. These are trend followers.”

The Spending Green profile, the shopper who buys green clothes because “that sense of exclusivity and entitlement are important to her.

The green fashion industry is exploding. More and more companies are entering the field every day and still, the consumers’ voracious appetitive for eco fashion seems to be not even close to be satiated.

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.

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 [...]

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.

Brian Base, the creator of RideSearch.com, was at the Green Dallas event held this last weekend here in Dallas, Texas. Proforma Green runs the t-shirts for RideSearch.com and both RideSearch.com and Proforma Green had been asked to participate in the event by the City of Dallas.

Well Brian was wearing a shirt we ran for him for the 2008 Plano Green Living Expo back in April (another event we both attended as vendors) and I noticed something.

The RideSearch.com shirts are natural cotton shirts. This means they have no dye in them, they are the color of untreated, undyed cotton.

What I noticed was that these shirts fade, although I am not sure fade is the correct word. As I mentioned the natural shirt, whether organic or regular cotton, are called natural because they have no dye in the shirts. So really there is no color (dye) to fade from the shirt, it is just the natural wear of the cotton.

And it seems that over time these shirts go from a sand tan color to more of a lighter parchment color.

I never really thought of it before but because the shirts have no dye in them they just act like what they are, natural cotton, and the “fading” is a result of their nature.

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.

SanMar, one of the largest shirt manufacturers in the US, just got into the eco-friendly apparel game in a big way.

The SanMar green site at http://www.sanmar.com/Green.html boasts 27 items, many that are eco-friendly versions of their very popular Port Authority band.

Port Authority is normally ranked #1 or #2 in the promotional market industry for sales. It is the shirt most Proforma offices recommend to clients.

SanMar also is offering bamboo shirts but as yet does not seem to have a product to go up against the e.c.o. Fleece items from AshCity, however I suspect they will come out with something to compete in this area.

AshCity offers in-house embroidery services. SanMar does not (of course Proforma Green can embroider any item from any supplier).

What does all this mean for the Ecopreneurist?

I often think about how ‘feel good’ a one-stop shop online would be if it could really answer my call for style. Just imagine…..eco-friendly cosmetics, jewelery, clothing, all the things every girl looks for, under a single cyber roof. Folks I have good news: Eco Zen Boutique, a socially conscious, Arizona based green fashion boutique owned and operated by eco-preneur Tandy Stepp, has recently opened a new online store at ecozenboutique.com.

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.

A funny thing happened on the way to this blog.

I wanted to write about the new line of e.c.o fleece items from Ash City - they use a fabric that is 75% recycled polyester/25% polyester.

These items are great for any eco-tourism or resort operating in a cold weather area, for eco-friendly landscaping work crews, maybe even as a resell item for a farmers market come the holiday season.

As consumers become more jaded about claims of greenness, companies that care about communicating their sustainability activities are looking for ways to credibly stand out. When done thoughtfully, the marketing of carbon neutralizing offset programs can be an excellent way to get your point across.

The travel industry has been a big adopter in the marketing of carbon neutrality. Expedia.com gives consumers the option to purchase TerraPass carbon offsets for the carbon emissions of flights. Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Car Rental and Alamo Rent A Car also provide similar options for car rentals. But these program are no-brainers as the consumer bears the cost of the offsets.

The newest generation of offsets marketing includes the integration of offsets into the product itself — no opt-in necessary and at no additional cost to the consumer. This new wave of marketing often involves on-packaging communication of the company’s offset programs and there are a few standouts. Bloomsberry & Co. has partnered with TerraPass to create Climate Change Chocolate, an incredibly tasty chocolate bar that includes in the price of every bar 133 lbs of verified TerraPass carbon offsets (133 lbs being the average American’s daily carbon impact.)

Think for a moment, if you wanted to make the maximum impact in greening one product area, what would it be? Cars may come to mind first, but that requires a significant commitment and investment by the buyer.  While it can and will make a positive impact, there’s an area that’s much more ubiquitous and may not even register on the radar for some - office supplies.

Think about how much you use. Think about how much a company of 50 uses. 500. To use supplies that are less impactful, or perhaps even eliminating the damage they typically do, has enormous potential.

It’s this thinking that led Gil Yaron, once a lawyer focused on shareholder activism and socially responsible investing to create Vancouver based FrogFile in 2006. In his work leading up to this, he saw that many companies were interested in greening their office operations, but they didn’t quite know how or where to do that. Then once they did know what they wanted to do, there wasn’t a place to get what they needed.

FrogFile seeks to be a remedy for this quandary. And yet, you might say, green office supplies seem to be everywhere these days, both online and in office supply stores large and small. What does FrogFile contribute, and how do they stand out from this growing chorus?