Although the California Senate voted to reject the planned ban of plastic bags from grocery, drug and certain convenience stores, that doesn’t mean that retailers should not be encouraging their use.

Despite this week’s statewide vote, leaders in many California communities, including Los Angeles and Santa Monica, are pursuing local plastic bag bans similar to the ones already in effect in California cities such as San Francisco, Palo Alto, Fairfax and Malibu. Nationally, Washington, D.C. now charges five cents for paper and plastic bags, while the city government in Austin, TX, is debating whether to ban plastic shopping bags altogether.

Every retailer should encourage reusable tote and shopping bags by offering them at their store—either free or for purchase at a nominal fee. Not only does it help to have industry self-policing, but it can make economic sense too—as every tote bag with your logo is like a walking billboard, advertising your company.

According to an industry study that I had mentioned in a previous blog, the average imprinted tote bag is seen by 12,000 people per year. Cost per impression is under a penny per view—so why wouldn’t every retailer use eco-friendly, reusable tote bags?

If the bags are under $3, offer them free with a $25 purchase, and have extras available for sale at $5. The ones that you sell will help to offset the ones you give away—so basically, you will have free advertising, while doing your part to reduce the carbon footprint of your customers—and keep the legislature away from your industry.

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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.

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GE has announced the closure of their last U.S. incandescent light bulb factory, which was located in Lexington, KY.

This is mostly due to new federal legislation calls for a switch to energy-efficient bulbs, making incandescent lights obsolete. “Market decline for incandescent types of bulbs has accelerated with governments around the world setting new standards for efficiency,” said Roy Wilson, general manager of GE’s North America Lighting Manufacturing in a written statement.

Now, there will be three types of bulbs to replace them: Compact fluorescent lights (CFL), light-emitting-diode lamps (LED) lights and MR16 halogen bulbs.

Compact fluorescent lights, which use 75 percent less energy than incandescent bulbs, are increasingly replacing Thomas Edison’s original invention on the market.

LED lights have been sold at Home Depot and a few other locations are starting to take hold in America. Although an LED will produce roughly the same amount of light per watt of electricity as a compact fluorescent, its advantages are that is fully dimmable and lasts longer than incandescent bulbs.

MR16, which are usually halogen, are only slightly more efficient than a standard incandescent and too small to allow for a fluorescent version. They do not fit into existing lighting fixtures, as they have two small metal pins and a flat face no more than a few inches across, these are mostly used in accent lighting in kitchens or retail stores.

Thomas Edison’s incandescent bulb lasted over 130 years, an amazingly long success for any technological invention. Dozens of new lighting methods, systems, discoveries and inventions will surely come and go over the next century.

Out with the old; In with the new. What will lighting be in 2110? I can only imagine it will be more powerful, more ubiquitous and more efficient.
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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.

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It has been reported that ULC Standards has acquired TerraChoice, the managers of Canada’s EcoLogo program.  This consolidation might make it easier for consumers to differentiate between green claims—so as to compare apples to apples.

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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.

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I just saw this website that had a fascinating presentation on the history of the planet’s climate changes ..and what the future may hold.

It is a interesting and interactive site based on 40 possible scenarios and based on as study by the IPCC, the non-profit Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The results can greatly effect world populations, in terms of famines, droughts, warfare, etc.  Global issue can be considered a security threat that needs to be addressed.

This study is an eye-opening look at what our planet can become if steps are not taken by leading countries and economies to address global warming in the immediate future.  It is time that people take a serious look at alternative energy sources, increased sustainability in manufacturing, transportation, farming, as well as other activities, before we pay an even steeper price.

Earth Day cannot be a yearly celebration.  It needs to become a way of life.

Let’s make Earth Day, Every Day.

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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.

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According to an article in Advertising Age, the Federal Trade Commission is planning to introduce a  new set of so-called Green Guides that are used by the FTC to guide enforcement of existing laws. They are the first environmental-marketing guidelines in 12 years and could radically reshape how far marketers can go in painting their products, packaging or even corporate images green.

These guidelines should help to clarify terms that are used by many manufacturers and retailers to promote sustainability.

Currently there are nearly 300 different Green Seals of Approvals used to grade a products “level of eco-friendliness”, and these guidelines will help to clarify these terms and definitions for consumers once and for all.

This can help to render much of today’s green washing claims obsolete.   However, as with any new rules and guidelines, it is important that the American consumer learns to read the labels and to understand these labels.  However, after a recent trip down the candy, cookie, soft drink and cereal aisles of my local grocery store last week proved, just because labels are out there, doesn’t mean anybody will be reading them or paying attention to them.  Sugar, fructose, corn syrup and other sweeteners are still high on the ingredient list of many of these products, and they are still selling quite well.

Let’s hope the public takes the time to learn these new guidelines — and supports those companies that are helping to make a difference to make the planet greener.

Let’s make every day, Earth Day.

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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.

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The winner of a competition sponsored by Starbucks to gather ideas for reducing non-recyclable paper cup use isn’t even a cup at all, but a concept for encouraging customers to bring their own cups for possible free drinks.

The top four winners of their contest are all excellent ideas to reduce paper consumption, but only one was a reusable or biodegradable cup.

“We’re very interested in looking at the winning ideas and many of the other submitted ideas as we develop new solutions to reduce cup waste,” said Elise Chisholm, Starbucks spokesperson. “We haven’t yet had a chance to determine specific action plans. Increasing adoption of reusable cups – including travel tumblers and our own ceramic serveware – is definitely an important part of the equation for us.”

The Betacup competition offered a total of $20,000 for ideas that could eliminate paper cup consumption. Starbucks sponsored it as part of its efforts to only offer reusable or recyclable cups by 2015.

The winning idea was the Karma Cup, a simple concept for putting a chalkboard by the register at a coffee shop, having customers that use reusable cups make a mark on the board, and then giving a free coffee to every 10th customer that uses a reusable. This is a fun and creative idea – but be sure to move back toward the end of the line once you see the 10^th person get their reward.

The three honorable mentions were: Read more…

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As companies are becoming more green, the next phase is trying to quantify exactly how much energy is being used in the processing, manufacturing and distribution of their products.

A new tool developed by the outdoor gear industry hopes to simplify the comparisons of “eco-friendliness” and to help companies understand what goes into their products and then improve any stage, from sourcing raw materials to recycling clothing.

The Eco Index, a project of the Outdoor Industry Association’s (OIA) Eco Working Group, is being launched this week at the Outdoor Retailer trade show for beta testing is intended for a range of products, from clothes to backpacks to camp stoves.

“It helps you identify the holes in the sustainability of your product and the impact your product is having,” said Beth Jensen, OIA’s corporate responsibility manager.

According to GreenBiz.com, the version of the Eco Index being released isn’t complete, but the OIA wanted to get a version out and in use so it can gather feedback and tweak it if necessary as it finishes up the rest of the Eco Index.

From Guidelines to Facts and Figures

The Eco Index, a web-based tool, has three levels, Jensen said, which are guidelines, indicators and metrics. The guidelines are just what they sound like, guidelines for how companies can be more conscious and sustainable when making products. Read more…

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I just read a great article, From Seed to Shirt, in Wearables, an industry magazine, which described in detail how organic cotton clothing is made.   The article describes how organic cotton is grown, harvested, processed and turned into shirts. I have uploaded the article here, so everybody can learn about the specifics.

I sell a great deal of organic shirts, caps and hoodies with clients’ logos, and many times have to justify the price differential in comparison with ordinary cotton. Today, in fact, organic cotton costs approximately $1.20 per pound vs. 90 cents per pound for ordinary or conventional cotton… and it will be a while before the price differential evens out.

Currently, organic cotton represents only about 1% of the world’s cotton supply, but this percentage is seeing a strong increase as customers are beginning to demand organic materials as they get back to nature.

Hopefully your organization will trend towards organic and other eco-friendly materials in your daily use, as well as in your promotional use. As demand for organic clothing grows, prices will surely drop.

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.

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Although BP advertising, like the one online at WSJ.com tries to portray the company as fighting 24 hours a day to clean up their oil spill mess, WSJ.com points out today that BP’s incoming chief executive said it is time to scale back the effort to clean up the spill — but stressed that the commitment to rectify problems hasn’t weakened.

Bob Dudley, who heads BP’s spill-recovery effort and will take over as CEO in October, said it is “not too soon for a scaleback” in the cleanup, and “you probably don’t need to see people in hazmat suits on the beach” in areas where there is no oil. He added, however, that there is “no pullback” in BP’s commitment to clean up the spill.

As they say on SNL—REALLY!??!!?!?! Not too soon for a pull back in the cleanup?!?!?

I find it hard to believe that there will be “no pullback” after this statement.

Just because they used chemical dispersants that sunk the oil from the surface does not mean that the oil has miraculously disappeared.

I hope Congress and the public does not let BP off the hook this easily. They have helped to destroy marine life in the gulf region and should not leave until all oil has been cleaned and the area returned to its previous condition.

Write to your Congressmen.
Boycott the company.
Get involved.

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.

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