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Printing and Sustainability

19 Nov

Got an email from FOREMOST GRAPHICS this morning, outlining the TWO SIDES! paper initiative. Worth taking a look if you have concerns about commercial printing and the environment.

Print and paper have been the preferred communication medium for more than 2,000 years. By gaining a better understanding of printing’s environmental impact today, we’re positioning print and paper to continue as the communication medium of choice.

The Two Sides initiative explodes the myths and sets out the facts about print media’s sustainability in a clear and concise manner. By helping people gain an understanding of why Print and Paper is a versatile and sustainable communications medium.

Two Sides is telling the sustainability story of print and paper. By tackling the relevant environmental and social issues head-on with factual, authoritative information that exposes the myths, explains our industry’s true sustainability and gives stakeholders a solid foundation for making well-informed decisions about the use of print and paper.

Check out how Two-Sides can help clear the air on Printing and the Environment:

TWO SIDES!

Might also want to take a look at their fact sheet page, https://twosidesna.org/Two-Sides-Fact-Sheet.

If you are interested in learning more about what you can do to lower the impact of your promotional printing, email info@proformagreen.com for information.

And as always, if you really want to do something sustainable, do not buy promotional products. All products are consumption at one level or another. So if you must buy, 1) Buy local (i.e. made in USA), 2) Buy useful, long lasting items, 3) Buy sustainable/recycled/recyclable products if possible.

Order Portals save Time, Money, Fuel and Headaches

12 Oct

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.

Not all the changes in the promotional products industry relate to actual products. New technologies are starting to make their way into our industry as well.

The neatest thing I have seen lately is the new concept of order portals from companies like Creative Merchandise, LLC, based in California.

Client Order Portals are custom web ordering platforms to make ordering promotional items even easier as they allow companies like ours to display our client’s logos on actual in stock merchandise in real time.

Why is that green? The number one question we get is how is a logo going to look on X item.

In the far past the only way to address this question was to develop a spec sample, i.e to run one item to serve as a sample for the hundreds of, say, coffee mugs to follow. Today we often run .pdf proofs instead of spec samples, but there are still thousands of spec samples being done in our industry.

The problem is that to run something even as simple as one mug spec sample is the same process as running 10,000 mugs. We use the same big machines, same screens, same setup but all that work and energy produce only one item.

It is like using a bulldozer to plant a single flower bulb in your front yard. Continue reading →

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Forget The Green Packaging At Your Peril – A Story

13 Sep

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.

chip clipWe recently ran 1000 bag clips for the MercyCorps office in New York (if you have never heard of this NGO check them out at mercycorps.com).

The New York office wanted some inexpensive and green items to use as giveaways and they went with the Garyline 6″ Bag Clip molded with up to 100% recycled material and an enhanced biodegradability additive so it beaks down once the clip is introduced to a landfill. Another reason to use Garyline was that their factory is in the Bronx so that lowered the project’s shipping costs and carbon footprint.

So client gets inexpensive, useful, green giveaway and everyone is happy. Right?

Sort of. Continue reading →

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Recycle Your Water Bottles On Your Laptop

19 Aug

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.

From leather to leader is how Leed’s explains it on their website. How about from bottles to briefcases? That might be a better description for Leeds line of 100% recycled promotional items made from water bottles and other recycled everyday items.

Leed’s Owl line of bags and other items made from recycled water bottles has added a new product to their list of made from 100% post-consumer recycled material (product label affirms this claim). Continue reading →

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Greening Business

18 Jul

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.

The world often perceives marketing as a wasteful practice. However, it is still essential in every business.

The good news is that companies like ours, proformagreen.com are manufacturing with greener, more resourceful printing processes and materials now more than ever. Mugs, pens, tote bags, the list continues to grow of items that are both eco-friendly and/or promote eco-friendly lifestyles.

My name is John Simonetta and I want to let businesses know that they really can go green. From packaging to uniforms to promotional items to printing needs, there are cost effective marketing solutions that allow businesses to lower their impact on the planet without sacrificing the quality of their brand.

In my posts I will highlight some of the new promotional and print solutions that are now available to businesses and organizations looking to Go Green with marketing collateral.

Photo Credit: spoons at Flickr Under Creative Commons License

Read More About Marketing:

Eco Libris: Le Mailing Vert – the French Green Version of Direct Marketing

Natural Marketing Institute, Nielsen Value LOHAS Mart At $209 bn

Creating a Web Site for Your Green Business

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