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Natural Source Printing is a green printing company in Orange County, California. In this interview, I ask President Mary Loyer how she helps clients both be more eco-friendly in their marketing communications, in addition to her thoughts on what green printing is all about.
Additional Resources:
I really love Wal-Mart’s leadership on this. My only concern is how those products are communicated and marketed. With the top 250 suppliers having until August 18th to submit proposals for Spring 09, I’m sure we’ll see an nice mixture of offerings. Some will use certifications of sorts, some will use house-designed labels and graphics. Particularly interesting is the retailer push for “stories” in the marcom. At least I hope they make ‘green’ an element of every product category, not just a larger category to be managed on its own.
This article from Arkansas Morning News explains it all
What do YOU think?
Lewis Green asked the following question to his readers in this post:
Sustainability is Hot! Are you? What does it mean to have a Sustainable Brand and/or be a green company? Do today’s businesses, some of whom are rushing to be labeled green, get it? Is authenticity key or can a company use marketing to get consumers to see they are green?
With some great responses you can read from his post, here is mine:
It means to be both environmentally conscious and be economically minded, through extreme efficiency and a goal of zero waste in operations, manufacturing, marketing, and product development. Setting goals and auditing to meet performance metrics will determine progress.
Authenticity and transparency are important. The degree to which you want to promote it though, will be up to the organization and the circumstances. In many cases, companies are already being responsible in their supply chain or other areas. The point is then to responsibly create an awareness program that at least states the facts, as part of a public relations package on corporate social responsibility. For other firms that are seizing the market opportunity on sustainability, obviously their communications are much stronger on the green/clean message. But their responsibility toward ethical communications remain the same.
But when the product is supposed to be green/sustainable, one must naturally be careful and not claim superfluous attributes that are vague. Perhaps the deep truth is real. In that case, marketing copy, language and graphic design has to be carefully constructed so as not to be critically/vaguely perceived. Third party audits and certifications are helpful, but only to the degree that the third party is recognized and credible. There is literally a fight going on among organizations that want to claim their label as being the best. Much of it is ego-driven, but most of it is about money. The labels with the most recognition and adoption by reputable companies will win. However, the government is the largest purchaser of most goods. It’s their actions to really watch under the radar, because although they’re slow as dinosaurs, they have a responsibility to the public to be very fair and objective. I’m still talking about product-orientation, everything else is CSR related and another world of its own.
Much of this reminds me of health food marketing. But claims like “99% fat free” (by weight doh!), won’t work in the green space because misleading claims are going to be found out about, blogged on, and criticized by others (and the competition).
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What do YOU think?
Where there is concern for personal health, and most importantly the health of infants and children, there is a market opportunity.
The Adiri Natural Nurser is an award winning baby bottle that is Bisphenol-A free, and is probably best described in the words of its founders as such:
“Designed with the help of doctors, moms and lactation consultants, the AdiriTM Natural NurserTM is the ultimate baby bottle. With reduced air ingestion, unparalleled ease of use, a graceful design and 100% polycarbonate-free materials, the Natural Nurser is a safer, simpler, more natural feeling, bottlefeeding experience for your baby, and for you.”
Yes, this is indeed a product that has a simple but elegant design. From a product marketing point of view, it is capitalizing on a real & growing societal concern about the relative safety of particular plastics (U.S. #7). And that my friends, is beautiful innovation in practice. The application is for something so highly regarded by parents anywhere in the world: the health of their children.
I would like to use this product as an example of innovation tied to a specific cultural value. Could we use the word ‘sustainable‘ or ‘green‘ in this case? Why sure, but by themselves they would be subjective and meaningless. Jacquelyn Ottman and other so called ‘green marketers‘ like myself, will happily tell you that there is no such thing as a ‘green‘ product.
The Point: Develop and market better products that provide customers with an improved value proposition, user experience, and benefits conferred, while appealing to relevant values that matter. If it happens to have an ecological advantage over competitive products, so much the better.
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Sustainability Officers Working with Marketing Leaders - Sometimes sustainability leadership comes as an additional role for a marketing leader. But increasingly this position is being filled with qualified individuals from a technical background. This AdAge article discusses how these two roles can work together to properly communicate green objectives & accomplishments as part of a firm’s corporate social responsibility programs within a public relations & advertising context.
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Vehicle Eco-Calculator - Todd And and his team from Leopardo construction created this tool for management to use for considering the petrol efficiency and ecological impact of proposed vehicle purchases.
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Webinar for Sustainability Reporting 101 - Presented by Addison Communications, this free webinar on sustainability reporting may be worth your while. It’s on Wednesday 23 July, between 1-2pm U.S. EST (GMT+5).
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The Green Bottom Line for Consumers is First Personal - This article by the Hartman Group, a research firm, confirms similar findings about consumer interests as does Clorox and other firms: The personal realms are where people care about the most. Skip through the first 1/3 of this article and also see their great Body-World Continuum Graphic.
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Michael Pollen and What’s Wrong with Environmentalism - In this excellent interview with Yale University, Michael discusses sustainable agriculture, world commodity prices, a 3 prong solution, and some terrific insights that tie into the ’sustainability is personal’ topic within healthier living. Money quote: “your health is inseparable from the health of whole food chain that you’re a part of…there’s a direct connection between the health of the soil, the health of the plants, the health of the animals, and you as eater.”
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Nanotech & The Unknown Risks - This is a very promising field, which can help us design lighter and stronger materials among MANY other uses. But with all new technologies, we must be aware of social, economic, and environmental risks. This article also by Yale University sums up the concerns quite well. As paraphrased by writer Carole Bass, the raw materials of nanotech are most commonly carbon and metals like silver, iron, and titanium which at the nanoscale, take on new and unpredictable properties. This makes them versatile and valuable, but it also makes them potentially dangerous in ways that their larger-scale counterparts are not. Case studies, research, and the current state of affairs are given.
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Sustainable Print Marketing - The choice of paper is a great first step. Until I find or write further on this unique subject, I’ll just point you to New Leaf Paper as the best sheet supplier in North America. But these articles by ‘Notes on Design’ about Ink Considerations and Working with Printers, provide excellent introductions.
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Japanese Packaging Reduction Design - Very clever PingMag article with great pictures and stories. Features include Nissin’s Cup Noodles transition from polystyrene to paper, ‘Nobori’ shop banners turned into tote bags, and aluminum drink cans with concave-convex patterns that reduce material and improve grip (based on research by NASA).
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The State of LEED - While many are familiar with LEED building certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, this article by GOOD Magazine discusses the current state of affairs with LEED certification, some valid concerns, and how the guidelines will be revised in the Fall.
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Nanopaper and its Potential - This article by MIT Technology Review, discusses current R&D into making super strong paper fibers and weaving that results in a material stronger than cast iron and tougher than bone.
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Au Revoir !
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{UPDATE 7/15: Due to some recent concerns on a few of these videos, unfortunately every one except #2 and #32 will be temporarily removed. We live in the social media age and for a topic this important, I hope all these videos can be made publicly available for the educational community. Please leave a comment if you’d like to know when they’re available again. Merci mes belle Amis…}
A 10-Minute Highlight video of some sessions I filmed at a great conference I attended in early June: Sustainable Brands 08. All of these videos cover topics in marketing communications, product development, operations, human resources, and management. The camera may not be always perfect, but I tried my best to get the best audio and sharpest resolution. Rollover a link for a quick abstract. On each individual page, there is descriptive information below the video about the speaker(s), the presentation’s summary and analysis, and additionally related articles and resources for further learning.
If someone you know may benefit from the incredible educational value of these sessions, please send them a link to this page or one of the videos below. They are under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license, and may be downloaded and redistributed as appropriate. If you’d like to learn more about the process involved in producing & distributing video through online social media, please send me an email at: mvellandi [at] yahoo.com . ~ Adieu
{UPDATE: Thanks to the Universities that have taken interest in these video case studies. I hope they serve essential value to educators and students interested in responsible & ethical approaches to sustainability}
