As energy prices begin to creep up again, one would think that Americans would be looking for simple, “no-brainer” ideas to reduce their consumption.

One of the easiest ways to cut electricity costs is to switch to CFL bulbs, compact fluorescent light bulbs—which work in a standard light socket. Replacing just 10 bulbs in a home or apartment can save 4700kWh of electricity—which is approximately enough energy to light the average house for two years. In fact, by replacing ten incandescent bulbs with 10 CFL bulbs can save nearly 2 tons of coal from being burned into the atmosphere – the equivalent to planting over 75 trees.

Yet, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal, sales of compact fluorescents have dropped in the current recession, to 21% of total U.S. consumer light-bulb sales in 2008 from 23% in 2007, according to the DOE.

The article quotes Terry McGowan, of the American Lighting Association, a trade group, who says that the old incandescent bulb, invented by Thomas Edison in 1879, is highly inefficient, generating 90% heat and 10% light. “The only thing worse is a candle flame”, he says.

The CFL bulb has been around for years and produces the same amount of light as its incandescent ancestor with one-quarter the energy. It lasts for years, provides light in a wide array of hues, and, by lowering electricity bills, pays for itself in about seven months.

Studies say improving the efficiency of the light bulb is one of the simplest ways to start meaningfully curbing fossil-fuel consumption. Lighting accounts for some 20% of residential electricity use in the U.S. – way too much too waste. Yet about 80% of all bulbs sold to U.S. consumers are incandescent bulbs, which often cost less than 25 cents apiece, about one-tenth the price of a compact fluorescent.

Perhaps the article’s quote from a Wal-Mart customer named Betty Ferrell, best sums up the lack of CFL sales, when she says’ “I buy the cheap ones. They may not be cheap in the long run but they’re cheap for what I have in my purse now.”

In fact, Americans have been so reluctant to buy the new bulbs that the federal government is about to force their hand. A recent law will, in effect, ban incandescent bulbs for most uses by 2014.

The article quotes Arthur Rosenfeld, a physicist who headed a team of scientists at the federal government’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in California, that did some of the early development work on compact-fluorescent bulbs, “If energy is dirt cheap, it gets treated like dirt. That’s been the problem.”

As long as Americans wait for “the other guy” to do more than their share by recycling, driving energy efficient cars and reducing their carbon footprint, so that they don’t have to, they are forcing the government to step in with legislation.

Step up and replace your incandescent light bulbs with CFL bulbs—for a greener planet.

How many Americans does it take to change a light bulb? Not enough so far!

Save Energy-Replace Light bulbs with CFL bulbs

Click here to learn more about CFL from the US Dept. of Energy.
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Robert Piller, experienced in green marketing campaigns and environmentally-friendly promotional products. His web site includes a comprehensive eco-friendly advertising specialty search, featuring over 250,000 eco promotional items in all price ranges, for any company interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find recyclable, biodegradable, organic or recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame. View the Go Green website at EcoMarketingSolutions.com and comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com.

Companies of all sizes use promotional products, also known as advertising specialties, gimmes, tschotchkes and swag. But have you ever thought about the impact on your brand that a simple imprinted gift can have?

The Archives of Internal Medicine published a comprehensive research study last week entitled “Effect of Exposure to Small Pharmaceutical Promotional Items on Treatment Preferences.” The goal was to find out whether or not ad specialties influenced the attitudes of medical students toward the products that were being marketed.

The findings: Yes they surely do.

Robert Piller, president of Eco Marketing Solutions, concurs, “People have a good feeling towards those companies that give away targeted promotional products. These items carry their brand, are used over and over again, and positively reinforce the brand to its recipient.”

Because of the tightening guidelines regarding the use of promotional products in the medical field, four doctors decided to attempt to find out if the restrictions were really necessary. Their premise was that you “often assume that small promotional items are unlikely to influence prescribing behavior,” says the report. This attitude is, according to their findings, incorrect.

According to the Counselor magazine, “they wanted to know: Do promotional products produce a more favorable attitude and do the policies against them work? The controlled experiment involved 352 third- and fourth-year med students at the University of Miami School of Medicine and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (where restrictive policies are in place limiting drug marketing). They were all exposed to branded Lipitor items without knowledge that they were part of a study. Fourth-year students at Miami had a more favorable attitude (by a score of 0.66) toward Lipitor compared to the control group (0.47). The scores were derived from an Implicit Association Test.”

These powerful results can be an eye opener for businesses that want their brand chosen over their competitors. Having branded promotional products surrounding the decision maker can be very cost effective. Keytags, magnets, water bottles, calendars—all with a company’s logo, will reach the buyer-in a subtle way –and positively impact your brand and message.
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Robert Piller, experienced in green marketing campaigns and environmentally-friendly promotional products. His web site includes a comprehensive eco-friendly advertising specialty search, featuring over 250,000 eco promotional items in all price ranges, for any business or organization interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find recyclable, biodegradable, organic or recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame. View the Go Green website at EcoMarketingSolutions.com and comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com.

It is estimated that over 20 million tons of plastic products are placed in US landfills each year. Unfortunately, according to the EPA, less than 5.3% of that total is being recycled. Typical petrochemical plastics would normally take from 100 to over 500 years to “biodegrade.”

However, with the addition of new compounds, these same plastic formulas biodegrade in a hundredth of that time or less—depending on the thickness of plastic.

Plastics manufactured with these FDA-approved additives will fully biodegrade in home compost heaps, commercial composting operations (both high heat and low heat, vermiculture process), buried in the ground, buried in landfills, tilled into the soil, having been littered, etc.

Eco Marketing Solutions offers a number of custom-imprinted biodegradable plastic items, such as sports bottles, key tags, pens, and flying discs. But what makes certain plastics biodegradable?

Fully biodegradable plastic products look like normal plastic products and have the same properties of plastic until placed into the waste stream. Best of all these products are offered at comparable prices to regular plastic products, all without changing the shelf life.

Plastic products manufactured with these additives will have the same life expectancy as the same plastic products manufactured without these additives under all conditions except under conditions where the product is in constant contact with other material that is biodegrading. For example, a water bottle manufactured with these additives will last in the warehouse and on the store shelf as long as it would without these additives.

The additive is made only from FDA recognized materials and processes regulated according to 21 CFR 175.300, 177.1200, 177.1350 and other sections and is compliant for use in applications with food contact.

Products with these new additives are “biodegradable” because they will biodegrade aerobically or anaerobically and without the need for additional reaction to heat, light or physical stress and therefore will biodegrade wherever there is other biodegradation occurring.

Plastic products manufactured with this additive can be recycled by both the manufacturer in their internal scrap regrind recycling and in post-consumer recycling programs – with no toxic residue.

Isn’t it time for you to demand that your plastic products are biodegradable? These additives are available, so help do your part in reducing landfill wastes by using biodegradable plastics –in promotional products and in your other supplies. Push your vendors to develop these products, as they cost no more than regular petroleum plastic –and they will help to reduce your carbon footprint.

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Robert Piller, experienced in green marketing campaigns and environmentally-friendly promotional products. His web site includes a comprehensive eco-friendly advertising specialty search, featuring over 250,000 eco promotional items in all price ranges, for any business or organization interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find recyclable, biodegradable, organic or recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame. View the Go Green website at EcoMarketingSolutions.com and comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com. You cn also follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ecomarketing.

Green perceptions are greater than reality, according to new research findings from the Earthsense Eco-Insights Survey on how consumers perceive corporate environmental responsibility. Findings are based on Earthsense Business Indicator (EBI) metrics that identify companies which consumers see as sustainability leaders. They also identify the businesses consumers support based on eco-friendly products, and they track changes in perceptions over time.
As more and more companies of all sizes participate in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), firms need to try harder to stand out from their competition. Auditing firm KPMG reported a 30 percent jump from 2005 to 2008 in the percentage of large companies generating CSR reports; 79% of the world’s largest companies now provide this information in a publicly available form.
The impact of consumer perception on corporate reality is clear: if consumers don’t know about corporations’ sustainability initiatives, those efforts will not be fully realized.

How can a business do a better job of promoting their “green-ness”?
1. Avoid Greenwashing-Stick to the facts and don’t exaggerate claims.
2. Highlight what makes your company green …in your packaging, your advertising—your entire image.
3. Compare your degree of eco-friendliness to your competition.
4. Minimize packaging – Less is more.
5. Use eco-friendly promotional items at trade shows. A recycled pen or biodegradable sports bottle trumps a pen that will end up in the trash—and eventually the landfill.
6. Promote your company’s green accomplishments and achievements in press releases, website, catalogs, ads, etc. Singularity of purpose is crucial.
7. Get involved in recycling campaigns—at home and at work.
8. Drive a smaller car. As the automobile executives learned the hard way when they first appeared before Congress for a bailout, perception of economy goes a long way.
9. Encourage staff to wear clothing that is eco-friendly: organic, made of bamboo or recycled material, etc.

Click here to download the entire Earthsense Eco-Insights Survey, courtesy GreenBiz, the leading green online publication for businesses.
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Robert Piller, President of Eco Marketing Solutions, has over 25 years of experience in running and implementing green marketing campaigns and is a leader in the recycled promotional products industry, including offering one of the largest selections of reusable and organic tote bags, recycled and biodegradable water bottles, recycled pens and pencils in the country.

His company’s website, EcoMarketingSolutions.com, features over 25,000 eco-friendly promotional items in all price ranges, for any business or organization interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find biodegradable, organic and recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame.

You can also reach him by email (robert (at) ecomarketingsolutions.com) or comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com or below at his Twitter link.