Promotional products are generally printed with your logo or message and given away to customers or the general public. They range from very inexpensive mass produced items such as pens, bags, caps etc to short-run, expensive high-quality items for valued customers or staff.

Giving promotional products away to your customers or potential clients is a great way to market your business, brand or event – everyone loves getting something for free for a start.

What’s even better is that you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are giving your customers or clients a useful, long-lasting branded product that will constantly and positively remind them of your company or organization.

Sounds good, but what happens in practice?

Unfortunately over 90% of the promotional products available in Australia these days are cheap, disposable and ultimately polluting or wasteful.  Most of it is:

– plastic (fossil fuel based) which takes hundreds of years to break down in the landfill,
– made from materials that are non-renewable and energy intensive such as aluminium or stainless steel, or
– made from materials produced from unsustainable fibres sourced from native forests and rainforests, cotton plantations, and can involve production methods based on unfair labour practices.

Common Important Questions

– Are such products truly valued?
– Are they useful and long-lasting?
– Do they really reflect your brand in a positive way?
– How long do you think customers keep their plastic keyrings, stress balls, flapper hands, flags, caps, banners, power banks, wristbands, and more?

You guessed it – all too often this disposable giveaway is NOT valued as you would like and quickly ends up in the bin destined to spend centuries in Australia’s over-filled landfill sites.

All that pollution (and sometimes exploitation of workers in overseas producer countries) to make the things, and the end result is a short, unvalued life before disposal in the waste stream. That can’t be satisfying for you or effective for your business, and it’s certainly less than your customers expect. Today’s market expects more.

Solution for Healthier Environment

As more and more people become aware and concerned about climate change, food safety, and the need to live their lives more sustainably, they are increasingly ready to respond to businesses and organizations who share their concerns, offer genuine solutions and use appropriate green or sustainable means to communicate with them.

If you want to be taken seriously by this ever increasing group, and to act sustainably in your promotional efforts, then the medium must fit the message: the promotional product you give your customer or client has to be green.

Thankfully there’s now a wider range of eco promotional products which allow you to promote your business or message or to educate/inform your market while letting your customers know that you share their sustainability concerns and values.

The Benefits of using Eco-Promotional Products

By switching to eco-friendly promotional products your business can:

  • Save resources and lessen your impact on the environment
  • Reduce your carbon footprint
  • Promote your business as environmentally responsible and aware
  • Increase awareness of, and respect for your brand
  • Educate and inform your market of new products or services
  • Reach new customers who are looking for genuine green solutions or sustainable businesses to deal with

As a marketing strategy, eco promotional products can be used alone, or integrated with other media, such as advertising, public relations and events. Popular uses include:

  • Generating new customers or new accounts
  • Non-profit fundraising
  • Public awareness campaigns by public authorities
  • Recruitment
  • For promotion of brand awareness and brand loyalty
  • As business gifts
  • As staff gifts or incentives
  • Orientation and education programs
  • Marketing research
  • Corporate communications
  • At trade shows, events and conferences

Eco Promotional product strategies are:

  • Cost Effective – they fit into almost any marketing budget  as there are products available at almost every price point.
  • Easy to Integrate – they complement other marketing/advertising media.
  • Easy to Target – they can be directed to targeted/selected audiences such as customers, prospective customers, clients, staff, or the general public.
  • Cost-Free Repetition of your message – the eco product continues to repeat the advertising message every time it is used, without extra cost per exposure.
  • Valued – People like to receive them and research shows that they are valued
  • Effective as Incentives and Motivators – since the items are useful, functional, green and appealing
  • Flexible – With so many cost-effective eco promotional products now available, there is a lot of flexibility possible in planning a successful promotion or campaign

What are Eco Promotional Products?

Eco promotional products are produced from materials and use processes that are a significant environmental improvement on traditional materials or manufacturing.

For example, they minimise or avoid the use of non-renewable resources, they foster or involve reuse and recycling, and they greatly decrease the negative effects of product disposal, by eg being biodegradable.

The eco promotional products that we at ecopromotions.com.au source, supply and print, need to satisfy at least 2 of the following criteria:

  • Be recycled, and/or
  • Be biodegradable, and/or
  • Be sustainable, and/or
  • Be organic, and/or
  • Be reusable, and/or
  • Have an identifiable reduced impact on the environment

You can read more in our website information pages at ecopromotions.com.au for more detailed information on our products and the materials used to make them.

The Development of Eco Products

While eco products available today are not yet all perfect and some involve initial compromises that need to be addressed over time, the trend is clear: there is a strong move to making the manufacture, use and eventual recycling or disposal of eco promotional products sustainable in the long run so that renewable, non-polluting resources are used and so that future generations can enjoy using the same type of resources and getting the same type of benefits into the future.

In the same way, we will see a trend to ever-increasing certification of the environmental benefits or features of eco products.

Today there are relatively few certified products in the promotional market, apart from FSC certification for some wooden and paper products, and Fairtrade, Organic Cotton and a few other certifications for some clothing, bags and toys.

About EcoPromotions

After decades in paper recycling and in the green business world, the directors of Ecopaper Pty Ltd formed 2 business divisions to supply both business and end customers:

  • EcoPromotions for the supply of printed eco promotional products to businesses and organisations
  • BuyEcoGreen for the supply of eco office, school and craft products through the online shop at www.buyecogreen.com.au

At  EcoPromotions, we understand the products, the issues, the promotional industry and the changing pattern of eco-consumer behaviour.

We are also eco product specialists: the only promotional products we supply are eco products. Not like many other promotional companies that supply 95% traditional plastic etc based products and have added a token 5% of ‘green products’ to satisfy the ‘eco buyer’.

Our eco promotional products are made from:

  • Recycled
  • Biodegradable
  • Sustainable
  • Certified
  • Organic
  • Other environmentally friendly materials.

Our products are also significantly carbon offset: we have chosen to voluntarily offset operational emissions and make a contribution towards offsetting product emissions with verified carbon offsets from C3 Climate Chest.

“Walking the walk” – at EcoPromotions.com.au we follow principles of sustainable living and ethical business practices including:

  • The purchase of 100% Green Power
  • Greenhouse abatement of transport
  • Product and operational emissions through carbon offsetting via C3
  • Maintenance of ethical business relationships
  • Support of charitable and aid organisations
  • Rainwater harvesting
  • Greywater recycling
  • Solar energy production for our office
  • And more

Eco Promotions Logo

 

Alsco would like to thank Con Goik, Director of EcoPromotions for sharing this awesome and informative article to help us keep our environment healthy and green.

Alsco’s number one priority is to keep our environment clean and green not just for us today but for the future as ell. Know more of our Personalised Mats, a perfect way to convey safety message to employees and customers. For more information about Alsco’s different services, you may visit our official website or call us on 1300 659 892!