Stop pretending QR codes are better for the environment
Why are we so obsessed with digital promotional materials, even at real-life events?
Conferences, Exhibitions, Expos, Fairs, Conventions, or, if you’re feeling particularly self-important, Summits. Call them what you want, but they are back with a bang. If you’ve ever been to a conference, I’d like you to visualise yourself there right now.
The din of people, multi-coloured posters, podiums and company-branded booths.
One of these booths catches your eye and you make your way over.
You talk with the company rep at this stall and you’re eager to continue the conversation.
At this point the company rep points you to a large, slightly pixelated image of a QR code on a screen that you can scan with your phone to find out more.
You hunt in your bag or coat pockets for your phone.
You scan the QR code. It redirects you to a page that attempts to load.
The WiFi connection in the convention hall is poor, and there is no data network.
The company rep assures you the page will load eventually.
You pocket your phone and move on.
You may or may not remember to check later if the page loaded.
Most likely you will not.
What a total waste of effort on the part of everyone involved.
The reluctance and refusal to print marketing material in favour of ‘digital assets’ in the name of the environment confuses me. I find it a particularly odd hill to die on.
I’ve had several experiences with this as a conference-goer, but a few years ago I also experienced it as a presenter. As a speaker at a conference, I wanted the audience (of 50–100 people) to have a one-page summary of the key points of the presentation, along with a short explanation of the services our company provided. I was met with flat-out refusal from the marketing team who said we would not print anything because we are trying to be ‘environmentally conscious’. Ironically, this was for a conference in London for which the company was flying out several senior executives from New York for two days. I wondered if presenting a way-too-wordy presentation on a small screen was fair given the steak dinner with the executives I was invited to later that evening.
This problem has only got worse recently. Just this week I heard from a former colleague that a job fair they went to had almost exclusively QR codes at the booths instead of printed materials. All of this seems out of place in a world where e-commerce sales continue to grow strongly, and people seem to have no aversion to the mountains of cardboard (paper) packaging delivered to their doorsteps. In fact, over half of all the paper in the world is used for packaging and wrapping, with only a quarter used for printing and writing.
Why this aversion to any printed material? Sure, we’ve all seen those annoying email signatures that read something like ‘Before you print this email, think of the Earth.’ Maybe we even use them ourselves. How did we go from that to brandishing our cellphones at QR codes to read a tiny image on a screen?
The main issue seems to be companies not wanting to be perceived as being unsustainable. Hurray for the oil exploration company that has a paperless careers prospectus. Every little helps right?
Another legitimate concern is the cost. It has always been expensive to print, and you might need to print several different versions of the same basic flyer or document over time, but with the digital ‘alternative’ far cheaper, and amendable as needed, companies with a tight budget are choosing to shun their printed promotional material. More money for that steak dinner!
I found several articles online talking about the death of printed promotional material. Some of these are from companies that sell cloud storage solutions, others from digital marketing agencies. Are they right? Do we need to all shun printed material to save the world?
Well, maybe and maybe not. There are several benefits of printed material in our society. But even before looking at these, it is important to contextualise the problem. A recycled paperback book (that can contain hundreds of pages) is estimated to emit 0.4kg of CO2. You’ll need to go through 2,000 of these before you come close to the emissions caused by a single passenger aeroplane journey from New York to London (in economy class). It’s a decent bit higher if you wanted glossy, printed paper like the ones used in promotional material, but even if I had printed 500 of these, it might just about equal the emissions from a single cheeseburger.
I’m not advocating for paper just because I like how the printed material looks, of course. Printed material has a greater impact, with a better recall value. It is also inclusive, as sometimes older people might struggle with QR codes and tiny PDFs that we inexplicably expect people to read on their smartphones.
As a shop window for what you are selling or promoting, it also gives you as a marketer some boundaries to work within, which can help make the creative process more efficient.
Finally, it’s worth remembering that there is also a significant environmental cost for digital data. Depending on the size of the files and the way they are stored and how they are accessed, the digital versions of these could also create significant emissions over the long term.
Despite my promotion of printing physical materials, I do acknowledge it’s important to be conscious of how we use them.
Here are some ways we can make that happen:
- Opting for recycled paper is a great start, as the emissions are between 20–25% lower than non recycled paper. It also has significant impacts in reducing water and power use.
- Once you’re done with the material, recycle it. This helps in two ways — it puts the paper back into the recycling chain, and also reduces the net stock of paper just lying around uselessly in the world.
- Make a concerted effort to estimate how much you will need and print accordingly. Err on the side of conservativeness. It’s better to run out slightly before the end than have stacks left over.
- Create digital/physical hybrid material. This can be achieved by having a smaller amount of printed material with a link (QR code of website) to a more detailed version of your materials available online. This does not condone the printing of a massive QR code on a piece of paper!
And finally, if you still feel bad about it, you can do what I do and aim to avoid that steak dinner!
