28 / 108
INNOVATE
26 •
PPB
• APRIL 2015
SEEING
GREEN
A COMMITMENT TO SOUND
ENVIRONMENTAL PRACTICES
Julia Wright, MAS, has always been interested in sustain-
able products. “For me, it is a niche market I love,” she says.
Ten years ago, after working in the industry for a time,
Wright started her own distributorship, Wright Choice
Promotions (UPIC: wcpaz), in
Phoenix, Arizona, as the go-to source
for environmentally friendly promo-
tional products. Since that time, she’s
redefined her focus from sourcing
products that are recyclable or made
from recycled materials to those that
are durable, and products clients will
keep and not throw away. “I want to
keep the product out of the landfill,”
she says.
The landscape for sustainable
practices has changed too. Wright
says many Fortune 100 companies
now have sustainability directors on their teams and
the Dow Jones now has a sustainability index as
well. Green companies are performing better,
too, according to a study conducted by
Zihong Wang and Joseph Sarkis at the
Graduate School of Management at
Clark University. A study of the top
500 U.S. companies indicated that
when social and environmental
supply-chain management is inte-
grated throughout an organization,
the effort is positively associated
with corporate financial perform-
ance. However, the positive effects
can have a lag time of at least two
years. Researchers also found that
organizations reaped the greatest
benefits when they implemented
both environmental and social supply
chain management simultaneously.
Back in 2007 the trend for green products exploded with
many suppliers introducing green products and including the
recycle symbols on their websites. “Everyone and their brother
were offering green products,”Wright says, “but there were
people who didn’t quite understand what it meant to be green.
They weren’t bad people—they just wanted to jump on the
bandwagon.”
There was misinformation. Some people made claims about
the environmental friendliness of products and processes that
turned out to be greenwashing (a term describing deceptive
marketing practices to portray an item or practice as environ-
mentally friendly when it is not). Some grabbed on to the trend
by adding “eco” to words to create trendy, green catchphrases
and product names.
In 2012 the U.S. Federal Trade Commission revised its
Green Guides, which helped clarify environmentally friendly
products for manufacturers and importers in all industries,
including promotional products. For example, the guide speci-
fies that marketers should not make broad, unqualified gener-
al environmental benefit claims like green or eco-friendly.
Broad claims are difficult to substantiate, if not impossible.
Also, claiming something is green because it’s made with
recycled content may be deceptive if the environmental costs
of using recycled content outweigh the environmental benefits
of using it. (See the Green Guides summary on page 29.)
Wright believes in the importance of educating her clients.
For example, she recently attended a Phoenix Green Chamber
of Commerce event and met with another team member who
needed business cards. She offered two
kinds of cards: “light” green, with 30-per-
cent recyclable material and vegetable-
based ink that cost about $60 for 1,000
cards, and “dark” green, made of 100-per-
cent recyclable materials that would cost
about $350 for 1,000 cards. “I said [to the
client], ‘I can’t recommend the dark green
cards. Take the $300 price difference and
put it into something that will make a big-
ger impact.’” She also suggested he consid-
er aluminum business cards, explaining the
material would make the cards stand out,
people wouldn’t throw them away as easily and
aluminum is infinitely recyclable. “This one sim-
ple question opened up a whole conversation—
that is exactly what I do.”
STAYING CURRENT WITH NEW AND
UNIQUE GREEN PRODUCTS
Back in 1994, Lauri Felson wanted to green up the indus-
try. A former flight attendant with a background in art and a
love of making paper, Felson introduced seeded paper
―
hand-
made paper crafted from recycled and biodegradable fibers,
petals and plant material, and embedded with laboratory-tested
flower and vegetable seeds. Once planted, the product creates a
lasting impression. When Felson received her first order for
10,000 seed cards, she knew she had a winner. In 1995 the
product won the company a PPAI award for “Most Creative
New Product for Promotional Products Use.”
Today the company, Symphony Handmade Seed Papers,
Inc., in Santa Fe, New Mexico, an extension of supplier Okina
“Everyone and their
brother were offering
green products, but
there were people who
didn’t quite understand
what it meant to be
green.”
—Julia Wright, MAS
Julia Wright, MAS