Promotional Items Industry Needs More Eco-friendly Items
Phrases like “global climate change” and “carbon footprint” are becoming big news, reminiscent of the big push to recycle in the 90s. It can seem like today’s issues actually dwarf the environmental issues we were dealing with a decade ago. In fact, we’re seeing industries that normally aren’t synonymous with “environmentally friendly” taking steps to reduce their carbon footprints. As an example, the computer and tech sectors are paying attention now, which have always relied on plastics and toxic chemicals to produce the latest gadgets and computers.
When we take a look at the promotional products industry, especially at computer related products, how does it stand up compared to other industries? Historically he promotional industry has been filled to the brim with environmentally unfriendly things, and combining it with computer products seems like the situation appears that much worse. The reason being, very few people recycle computer equipment (which is changing as states adopt new computer recycling programs), so there are tons of non-biodegradable computer waste piling up in the world’s landfills.
The EPA evaluates how “green” a PC is using something called an Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT). Although there has been some news attention about it every once in a while the environmental safety of computer equipment has been largely ignored. Based heavily on the European Union’s standards, the EPEAT has fifty one different criteria that must be met to varying degrees for a particular product to earn either a bronze, silver, or gold rating. The EPA hasn’t issued a gold rating to any computer or computer accessory yet. Efforts towards that goal are being made, though, and Energy Star rated computers are as popular as a result. It was only this year that a 100% biodegradable USB drive was announced, called an EarthDrive.
As can be typical of the promotional products industry, new environmentally friendly products are slowly trickling in to catalogs. A new technology can become popular and still take a while to appear as a promotional product. We’ve had recycled promotional products for some time now, things like keychains made from recycled plastics and of course some recycled paper goods. Biodegradable corn-based plastics are slowly trickling into most companies’ catalogs but it still remains to be seen how popular they end up in general. They aren’t all that popular yet, and with corn prices hitting record highs this might end up as a dead end until an alternative material is figured out.
On the surface, taking these things into consideration, it seems like the promotional products industry isn’t doing so great. Certainly, there could be a lot more work done on the whole. It’s not all bleak news, though. A lot of the computer related promotional products we sell are small and incredibly useful. We’re not selling entire computers (maybe someday!) and people are loathe to toss out an incredibly convenient USB drive.
The changes coming to the promotional products industry are coming slowly, but they’re still changes that are happening. Once the demand for eco-friendly computer promotional products grows a little more, the industry as a whole will begin making the changes required. It’ll take a while, but the promotional products industry will definitely step up to the plate.
Consultant and author Harold Ellis has years of knowledge and experience that have helped him dodge countless pitfalls when including custom promotional items in a marketing campaign. He is here to share his knowledge and give a few basic and advanced tips on things anyone in marketing should be aware of.
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