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ith more companies following the trend toward greener pastures, eco-friendly promotional items are making their way to the trade show floor.
The promotional-products industry provides endless opportunities to get on the Green bandwagon. From recycled-plastic pens to organic-cotton apparel, the list of eco-friendly options is long and getting longer. Most promotional-product companies offer some Green choices, while other companies such as Ecobranders and Econscious devote themselves entirely to keeping it Green.
Paul Kiewiet, board chairman for the Promotional Products Association International, says his industry has seen a large increase in recycled and in eco-friendly products offered by suppliers, which indicates an increased demand from consumers. According to Kiewiet, also vice president at CorpLogoWare, the growth in environmentally-sound products is a direct result of younger, more environmentally-conscious adults entering the workforce, and a growing social awareness of global warming.
“By choosing a Green promotional item, you’re making a statement about your brand,” Kiewiet says. “When a company chooses a Green option, it is making a statement that it is concerned about the environment. It’s making a statement about its core values.” And that statement can have a direct impact on the bottom line.
Stefan Bergill, sales manager for Econscious, a brandable, organic-apparel manufacturer, says consumers and trade show attendees alike are becoming aware that they have the power to choose companies with a Green sensibility. As consumers make the choice to go Green, they push the companies they do business with to do the same, says Matt Franks, co-founder of Eco Incentives Ltd., an eco-friendly promotional-product company in Great Britain. “I think people are starting to make their voices heard,” he says. “I think it is a revolution. I think it’s a shift in attitude, not just a popular trend.”
While many assume the cost of going Green is wildly prohibitive, eco-friendly promotional items allow you to go Green without spending too much green. With Green giveaways starting at under a dollar apiece, exhibitors can be a part of the solution, while sending an emerald-hued message to earth-conscious consumers.
Read on to see some eco-friendly options, along with a few innovative examples of how some exhibitors are turning their giveaways Green. e
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Lights Out
Help attendees light up their lives with a branded wind-up flashlight giveaway from Ecobranding.com. All this little baby needs to light up the dark is a little elbow grease. The environmental benefit of this product is two-fold — it eliminates the need for traditional toxic batteries, and
it’s made of 100-percent recycled plastic.
Natural Highlights
Highlighters make it easy to bring attention to important parts of documents, but they can also leave brightly colored marks on your hands, shirt, or desk. Some also have a strong, chemical smell that’s anything but pleasant. But the Ecological Highlighter from epromos.com solves both those problems; plus, it earns a spot on the eco-friendly side of the scorecard. The bright-colored wax core lets text come through easily, with no stink, while the wood casing is biodegradable. Your company name or logo can be printed right on the wood, making it the perfect giveaway to highlight your company’s environmental awareness.
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Planting the Idea
Exhibit Works Inc. sent a post-show mailer to booth visitors following the EXHIBITOR2007 educational conference and exhibition in March. The mailer contained a post-show promotional item — a 3-by-5-inch sheet of recycled paper embedded with wildflower seeds — stuck to a postcard inside the envelope. Other suppliers offer the seeded paper in various shapes and as a postcard. Just place it under a layer of soil, water it, and let Mother Nature take her course.
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Not Your Typical Fruit Basket
Want to hand out a truly eco-friendly giveaway? How about a piece of fruit? It’s edible, totally biodegradable, and 100-percent sustainable. And when it’s got your logo laser cut into the skin, it becomes a handy, tasty, unforgettable promotional item. Eco Incentives offers Logo Limes in minimum orders of 100, and can also brand oranges, lemons, pomegranates, and passion fruits with your art. But a word of caution: This fruit might be really cool, but it’s still real fruit and has a limited shelf life.
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Trade Show Tattoos
In 2005, Organically Grown Co., a Clackamas, OR,-based organic-produce supplier, started using Green giveaways at the numerous trade shows the company attends and the vendor fair it hosts for its retailers and suppliers. Over the years, Organically Grown has handed out lanyards made of recycled plastic, pens made of recycled paper, and even kid-friendly temporary tattoos made of soy-based ink.
In the Bag 
It’s nearly impossible to attend a trade show and not gather a truckload of literature, giveaways, and more. Receiving a bag from a vendor makes it much easier for attendees to lug around their haul. But rather than traditional plastic bags, why not give attendees an eco-friendly bag
branded with your company name and logo? To ensure that attendees will use the bags once they leave the show, choose a sack with lasting power, such as bags made from woven corn plastic, hemp, or this organic-cotton number from Econscious. Not only are these bags made of earth-friendly materials, their sturdy structures allow them to be refilled time and again, the very essence of recycling.
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Find Out What You're Made Of
Want to know what your recycled promotional items were before they became logo-laden tchotchkes? Eco Promo Gifts, a promotional-product company based in Great Britain, tells exhibitors exactly what goes into their giveaways. Shoppers can visit www.ecopromogifts.com, and scroll over images of promotional items to find out what they’re made of, such as recycled CD cases, recycled paper, recycled denim scraps, and more. That knowledge can aid an exhibitor in finding an eco-friendly item that’s not only Green, but also a perfect fit for its company or key message. For example, recycled-plastic pens are great, but if your company sells banking supplies, pens made from recycled dollar bills are even better.
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Plugged In To Nature 
If each vendor at a trade show with 6,000 attendees handed out three pieces of literature to each attendee, it would add up to roughly 18,000 sheets of paper. Instead of taking the paper route, put your literature in an electronic format. These USB drives from Eco Incentives Ltd. not only allow you to leave the paper behind by putting your catalogue and other documents in electronic format, they come encased in recycled plastic or reclaimed wood. They send an earth-friendly message to attendees, and they hold a ton of information and images and can be used over and over again, making them a valuable giveaway that’s likely to remain in attendees’ possession long after the show.
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Seed Bead
Sambazon Inc. takes its commitment to the environment seriously. The company works with native farmers in the Amazon to harvest the acai berries that make up the lion’s share of Sambazon’s products — a practice that promotes sustainable farming instead of clear cutting the rain forest. The purple berries contain a large seed, millions of which are generated daily. Some of the seeds are used for fuel in the company’s factory, but Sambazon also gives some of the seeds to the local Amazon women. The women polish and thread the lovely seed beads into necklaces, which Sambazon hands out in its booths at trade shows. The company also sells the necklaces on its Web site, www.sambazon.com.
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Keeping it Corny
The advent of biodegradable corn plastics means that a whole host of plastic promotional items are now being manufactured as something that will, under the right circumstances, break down in the earth instead of lasting forever in a landfill. Plus, unlike traditional plastic made of oil, the source is renewable. Products made from corn plastic, such as this pen and coffee mug from Garrett Specialties, tend to be inexpensive, and the
choices are vast. Before ordering that next gross of branded pens, think corn.
Wear Your Commitment on Your Sleeve
According to Counselor magazine, a promotional-product industry publication, apparel, ranging from T-shirts to button-downs, is the No. 1 promotional item purchased. So why not create an eco-friendly battalion of walking billboards by giving away organic-cotton T-shirts or sweatshirts branded with your logo? To underscore your Green commitment, outfit your booth staff in organic shirts or caps as well.
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Papered Over
Recycled paper is one of the oldest and most common green materials around. This epromos.com notebook is filled with recycled paper and held together by a recycled steel spiral — and the cover is recycled as well. You can also order pens or pencils made from recycled paper, including this pen from The Goodkind Pen Company Inc. The pen is refillable and recyclable. In fact, when your prospects are done using their pens, the company packaging allows them to simply affix a stamp and drop it in the mail and Goodkind will recycle it again.
A Giveaway That Grows
For Stonyfield Farm, which manufactures organic milk and yogurt products and puts “For a healthy planet” on every label, Green giveaways are a part of an overarching eco-friendly corporate mentality. Stonyfield considers the environment in every aspect of its business, from packaging to booth building. At the All Things Organic trade show in Chicago in May, staffers wore organic-cotton shirts, and a wheelbarrow filled with tiny flowerpots planted with basil seeds were free for the taking. Plastic scraps from the formation of multipack yogurt cups were recycled to create the planters holding the seeds. Text on the flowerpots instructed attendees to soak the core pellet, plant the seeds, and water it daily to get a tiny, growing plant. The eco-friendly promotional item not only helped Stonyfield stand out from the cacophony of branded tchotchkes,
it also helped the company plant the seeds of future sales.
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