Have you thought about the environmental impact of the items you purchase? Every April 22, for over 50 years, we celebrate Earth Day, which helps to highlight important issues such as climate change, pollution, deforestation, and plastic waste. The goal is to educate people and inspire environmental change around the world. We can do this with custom promotional products as well! From pens, to coffee tumblers, to t-shirts, you can choose the same classic promotional products while pushing consumer behaviour in a positive direction.
Here are 7 ways you can help make your branded swag more eco-friendly!
1 Choose Reusable Products
The best way to ensure that your promotional products don’t quickly end up in a landfill is to choose reusable products. The easiest way to accomplish this is through quality and appealing design. If we take the t-shirt as an example, an estimated 84% of unwanted clothing in the United States end up in landfills or incinerators. So we can add value to our promotional t-shirts by having them last longer while looking and feeling like retail. This can be accomplished by choosing quality materials and making their designs on trend so that they can be proudly worn over and over. Doesn’t hurt that this would increase your brand impressions as well 😉
2 Consider Swag Made With Recycled Fabric and Materials
Thankfully, as the zeitgeist changes to think more about climate change, we have more and more production partners working at creating traditional swag with less virgin materials. Pens, notebooks, and t-shirts are just some items that use recycled materials to achieve the same promotional goals. Even retail brands that provide within the promotional space are working towards a more recycled supply chain. Adidas, for example, has vowed, as part of its sustainability goals, to eliminate virgin polyester by 2024.
3 Lower The Carbon Footprint of Your Promotional Products
Regardless of what type of promotional product you choose, it will have an unseen carbon footprint. From the sourcing of the raw materials, bringing them to factories, and then to final production lines, with the eventual journey to its final destination. So how can you reduce the carbon footprint of these items?
While an obvious solution would be to pick items that are sustainably sourced and produced, another easy method that helps our communities, is to buy local. Items Made in Canada are generally made with higher quality materials and production but also have less of a distance to travel than an item developed on the opposite side of the planet. Every little change can build to a big difference!
4 Embrace Swag That Gives Back
Another way to help guide change that will help our planet is by branding items that have two positive channels instead of just one; one to your client, and one to a non-profit or project working to make our world a better place. Thankfully, giveback swag has exploded in popularity. Big names like MiiR and Welly offer their products to the promotional products industry while some of our production partners align themselves with programs like 1% for the Planet. Using promotional product with this type of message really shows end-users thought and care went into product selection.
5 Pick Swag That Doesn’t Suck
While straw puns help to draw attention to a problem, straws are just a small percentage of one overarching problem; single use plastics. The debate continues on its effectiveness, one thing can be agreed on – we use a lot of plastics. When choosing promotional products, you want your logo to give positive brand impressions. This could mean different things depending on what message you want to convey. If you want to showcase quality and longevity, sticking with our straw example, you can choose to have metal or reusable straws sport your logo. On the flip side, if you want to show a commitment to reducing your carbon footprint, you can leave positive impressions with users through paper straws. There are lots of ways to reduce our reliance on single-use plastics!
6 Put Your Brand on Repurposed Materials
Similar to point #2 with a slight difference. Repurposed or upcycled promotional products are made using previously existing products and giving them a new life vs. breaking down the components of a product and using recycled parts of it to make something new. It can be a confusing line but rest assured, upcycled products are a trend that we will continue to see more of. It’s a great way to help give fantastic swag while helping waste avoid the landfill.
7 Make a Difference: Ethically Sourced Materials
Last, but not least, put your brand on promotional products that are derived from ethically sourced materials. This means that the components that go into making your product are obtained responsibly and sustainably. Usually, these products come with a story that will make everyone feel good. One of our production partners, HHPLift, is a great example of a company that sources all their materials ethically. Their tote bags are made with end-roll materials and stitched together in Cambodian factories that pay better than living wages so that workers can give their families a better life.
Thankfully, every year we see more and more options of promotional products that help make your swag more eco-friendly and, in turn, more appealing to your end users and consumers in general. This Earth Day, ask us about some environmentally or socially responsible products that you can add to your projects.
