By an Australian Friend…

Green-wash (green’wash’, -wôsh’) – verb: the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.

The other week, I read an article in Desktop magazine about ‘green’ printing and promptly mailed it off to one of our printers, Don. It was all about paper stock and inks and so on. He does a lot of printing for larger companies – annual reports, product disclosure statements and the like – so I knew it wouldn’t be a new topic for him, and since he’s been in the printing industry since papyrus was the medium of choice, he’s pretty much seen it all, but I thought I’d send it to him anyway. So, I called him this week to see if he received the article and got a pretty blunt response about it. Recycled stocks, it seems (and the incessant requests for them, I guess) are more about feeling good that doing good. And when you think about it, it does make sense. I mean think about it – exactly how much bleach do you think it takes to make old paper look like new paper? Kind of undoes some of the goodness, doesn’t it? I then naively enquired about waterless presses … a true con job, I was told. Waterless, yes. But the water is replaced with buckets and buckets of solvents, so is it environmentally friendly? Not so much.

If you do nothing else that is environmentally sound apart from promoting yourself for using outwardly green products, then you’re just ‘greenwashing’. Basically what this amounts to is having one area of a business that is able to be touted as environmentally ‘friendly’ or ‘sustainable’ or ‘responsible’ which disguises the other areas of the business that aren’t. It’s like a magician distracting you with one hand while he steals your watch with the other. On the other hand, if your house is in order and you have a clear conscience about your carbon footprint, then go for your life with your green marketing – you deserve to.

So honestly, how ‘green’ is your office? Do you recycle? Does the coffee machine only know the caress of environmentally sound coffee? Is there only sandpaper … I mean recycled paper … in the toilets? Does everyone think twice before making spare copies of documents and reports, and printing off emails? Because, let’s face it, the greenest printing option of all is not to. And let’s not even get started on the bulk of other compulsory business documents that need to be printed … annual reports (who ever reads them? Apart from the directors checking their photos and the designers checking that their cool design hasn’t gone skewy in the layout phase, no one ever really opens them, let alone reads them), product disclosure statements, the terms and conditions of using your credit card (now there’s a hefty tome!) … the list of largely unread, paper-wasting company documents goes on, and on. Now, thanks to an uncharacteristically intelligent decision from the government, businesses can offer the option of supplying these documents online, meaning printing is restricted to covering the direct requests for hard copies. Finally, a sensible business solution!

But really, it’s all about behaviour. One of the reasons that true ‘greenies’ argue against carbon offsets as an environmental strategy is that they do not force people to change their behaviour. What they do is give people an ‘out’, a way to be forgiven for their sins, It’s the environmental version of a confessional – drive a big 4WD even though you’ve never been further off road than mounting the gutter to dodge next door’s dog? Buy a handful of carbon offsets (the equivalent of five Hail Mary’s and six Our Father’s) to make you ‘neutral’ and you’re off the hook.

So putting it on the line here, are ‘green’ promotional products just as bad? The answer is a resounding and unequivocal ‘maybe’.

There are certainly negative aspects – some products are only vaguely green, and some are totally green in a very small way (like maybe only a small part of the item is recycled, or perhaps whole the product is made from recycled materials, but the handling and transport of the product between suppliers is absolutely not ‘green’ – you get the idea), much the same way as a $100 billion (with a ‘B’) oil company with a $200 million (with an ‘M’) solar subsidiary … not mentioning any names… As most of us don’t produce petroleum, we can probably rest easy at night with most of our decisions, but I’m of the opinion that if we’re going to do something, finding the greenest way of doing it is the way to go. So for me, if you’re going to promote, pick a green product.

You are going to have to do your homework to make sure you choose a product that is actually environmentally friendly, as opposed to one that is partly green and has had a fabulous marketing team put a green spin on it. A great example here is a cleaning product company (which shall naturally remain nameless…) that is busy touting how its new extra concentrated formula in smaller packaging is great for the environment as it leads to less landfill. Sounds wonderful, but fails totally to address the fact that the product inside the packaging is still loaded with phosphorous and petroleum derivatives. But – and here’s the fun part – they haven’t actually lied. Is the product better for the environment? Probably a little bit. Is it as good as it could be? Probably not. Are people going to spend that little bit extra for it thinking they’re doing a good thing? Yup. And there you have it – the reason behind the new trend of ‘greenwashing’. But beware the backlash when consumers find out that they’ve been dropping their hard earned cash on products that aren’t quite what they claimed to be. If you’re interested in finding out more about this and the risks involved, check out www.gogreenaustralia.com and take a look at what the consumer watchdogs are doing to help prevent greenwashing.

Oh, and back to the recycled paper … Don says that there are paper stocks which are both ‘green’ and less expensive than recycled paper. There’s one called Harvest, which is made from plentiful and renewable sugar cane and it’s what I’ll be using for my next print job. While it’s environmentally friendly, it’s not recycled, so I won’t be able to wear my environmental status on my sleeve by using that little recycled symbol on the back, but I’ll know what I’ve done and it will be better for everyone.

Giant’s little tips for really being green…

* Try not to spend more money on appearing to be green than on actually being green. It kind of defeats the purpose, and people (that is, your consumers) will find out in the end.
* Think about electronic alternatives – why print if you can publish on the web or send via email? (Sorry, Don.)
* Don’t collect brochures and catalogues that you aren’t going to use or need. Leave them there for someone who will use them.
* Switch stuff off. So many of us leave things on standby or even just on when we don’t really need to. Switch your office off at night – we can all wait the two minutes it takes computers and the coffee machine to warm up in the morning (okay, well maybe not the coffee machine!).
* Lock up the stationery cupboard! Restrict the amount of waste in the office by insisting on simple measures (like using the opposite side of single sided copies of non-confidential documents for scrap paper).
* And in the meantime, if you want some green ideas for really environmentally friendly products to use in your next promotional product campaign, give us a call or check out our online catalogue at Giant Promotions (Australia) or Steel City Marketing (UK)