Buzz Factory. Promoting Brands Responsibly™.

Posted by Manny Siragusa, April 29th, 2008

I’d love to say marketers have infinitely more power than consumers to effect positive change on the environment, or that collectively we can solve the global warming problem if we just switched to recycled paper for our direct mailings. The fact is there’s no simple answer to this question. Our impact on the environment varies based on many factors including ad budget, media tactics, market size, and so on.

Here’s what I do know, the decisions we make as marketers impact the environment and society far more than the decisions we make at home as individual citizens. Think about the waste one household creates as compared to the waste created by one marketing campaign at one company. I’ve personally managed million piece direct mail campaigns and purchased thousands of tee shirts as incentives, and I’m just one marketer. Multiply that by the number of companies that do similar promotions and we’re talking waste on a scale rivaling many industries.

Here are some facts that may help put this into perspective:

• 55 million pounds of pesticides are sprayed on non-organic cotton each year alone. This equates to roughly one pint of pesticide per non-organic tee shirt.
• One cotton T-shirt blended with polyester can release approximately one quarter of its weight in air pollutants and 10 times its weight in carbon dioxide.
• Roughly 100 million trees are used to manufacture the paper for direct mailings each year.
• Various studies show that only 20-30% of direct mail gets recycled; most of it winds up in our landfills.
• In 2006, the promotional products industry generated $18.6 Billion in revenue. No statistics exist on the percentage of the products sold that were made in sweatshops or with unsustainable and toxic materials, but this is an industry that competes on price.

Marketers understand that the times are changing and we must change with the times (or go the way of the buggy whip). Citizens are demanding greener product options and services. Promoting your brand as green is only half the equation, communicating your message in a socially responsible way helps your message ring true.

Manny Siragusa
Founder, Buzz Factory, Inc.

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