According to the AP news wires, the World Health Organization has told its member nations it is declaring an H1N1 flu pandemic — the first in 41 years.

According to the report: “The move came Thursday as infections climbed in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and elsewhere.

In a statement sent to member countries, WHO says it decided to raise the pandemic alert level from phase 5 to 6, meaning that a global outbreak of swine flu has begun. The decision was made after the U.N. health agency held an emergency meeting on swine flu with its experts. The last flu pandemic was in 1968.

The pandemic declaration will require all countries, including the dozens that haven’t yet reported any cases, to launch pandemic-prevention plans.

Peter Cordingley, a spokesman for the WHO based in Manila, noted that the term pandemic was “a measure of the spread of the virus, not the severity of the virus.” The virus’s effects are moderate at the moment, he noted. “But it’s still going to infect an awful lot of people.”

Just over half the world’s confirmed H1N1 cases, or 13,217, are in the U.S., including 27 deaths, according to the WHO.”

You can help your customers prevent the H1N1 flu virus from infecting them with imprinted hand sanitizers.

EcoMarketingSolutions.com has just slashed their prices on these sanitizers– wipes and spray misters–to do their part in helping to prevent the spread of this pandemic. Both are available for under a dollar –with your logo. These are great for trade shows, gift with purchase–or even for resale. Click here for details of these custom imprinted hand sanitizers.

Wash your hands, keep your fingers away from your mouth, and let’s all stay calm in fighting the H1N1 virus, formerly known as Swine Flu.

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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.

According to a June 11th story by Kirk Ladendorf of the daily newspaper, AMERICAN-STATESMAN, Texas has become a leader in creating jobs tied to clean energy.

Pew Charitable Trusts researchers counted over 68,000 businesses and 770,000 jobs across the country tied to clean energy as of 2007, and determined that Texas ranked second to California in both jobs and clean-energy businesses.

Although those jobs amounted to .005% of the nation’s total, Pew researchers noted the “clean-energy sector grew twice as fast as the overall economy during the past decade and is poised for explosive growth in the coming years because of a surge in private investment in the sector and in federal government spending.”

According to the Statesman article, “Texas, long known for its strong ties to the oil and gas industry, is also a major player in clean energy, ranking second to California in numbers of businesses (4,802) and jobs (55,646) tied to the sector.”

“Texas is a leader in the clean-energy economy and a strong national performer,” said Kil Huh, who led the Pew study. “Texas is the sixth-largest producer of wind energy in the world. The state’s clean-energy economy is poised for incredible growth.”

Pew officials credited the state’s policies on renewable energy for playing an important part in its growth of wind power generation. The state also ranked third in clean-energy venture investments and fourth in clean-energy patents.

As more cities receive Federal Stimulus funds, they too can set their sights on becoming cleaner. Green energy will bring jobs, though it will most likely be a slow climb until it hits a critical mass–where it should grow exponentially as costs come down and a labor pool is retrained.

Here’s to a greener tomorrow…today.
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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.

In order to become a greener organization, many companies are debating whether or not they need to produce a print catalog –or whether to become 100 percent digital.

Although every industry is different, the trend in most is definitely moving away from print and heavily toward electronic distribution of their advertising material.

If you are a green-friendly company, then there should be no hesitation. Our company, for example, has a limited number of catalogs printed for use at trade shows, but we have become more selective in the number of catalogs we print. In fact, for trade shows and direct mail efforts, we cut our full 68-page catalog down to only 8-pages. Good stewardship begins at home.

If you do decide to print a catalog, here are a few thoughts to consider:

1: Be sure paper is FSC-certified ––preferably FSC-recycled. For a list of FSC papers available in North America, click here.

2: Print fewer pages. Perhaps highlight only new products, specials, services, etc., then promote in the catalog a link for the balance of your items and offerings.

3: Use soy-based inks-rather than petroleum based inks. Many inks that are designed to run through a laser printer or ink jet printers, are soy-based, as they withstand a higher heating point made from the fuser roller. Many offset printing inks are also soy-based. Check with your printer.

To learn more about soy-based inks, visit the American Soybean Association web site.

Click here to see what types of inks can be certified as soy-based inks.

4: Put your catalog up on your website in page-flipping mode. We just recently put our new 68-page catalog online—with new page flipping technology, which is available from many vendors, including: page-flip.com, paperator.com and FlipCity.com.
To see our page-flip catalog using TechnoLogo software, go to www.ecomarketingsolutions.com. Then, on the left hand side of the page, click on the third bullet point from the bottom–Green Catalog-NEW.

5: Go with a self-mailer—Eliminate the envelope or plastic wrap by making the catalog into a self mailer. In this example, our 8-page catalog was printed at 8-1/2″ x 11″. The link opens to the front and back page. The back page folds over to 5-1/2″ x 8-1/2″ and was able to be sent at under 3.3 ounces, for maximum cost effectiveness. There was a place for the bulk indicia or for a bulk-rate stamp.

We also highlighted our website on every page, so customers would be able to notice it regardless of what page they turned to.

6: Put your entire catalog onto USB drives imprinted with your logo and website and send to clients and prospects. Many of our clients have used imprinted USB drives—even USB drives made from recycled materials, to hand out at trade shows and for post-show follow-ups. Not only does this save on printing costs, but on freight and drayage costs as well. Plus your client will think of your company in a more favorable light. With print-on-demand, the costs of the USB drives may actually be in your favor—and you can change them on an as-needed basis—updating prices, promoting new specials, etc.

Determining whether to go to a print catalog, an all-digital catalog, or some variation or hybrid can help shed new light on ways to improve the planet, while also helping to save you costs and promote your business in a new light.

Here’s to a greener planet.

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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.