“Eco-friendly” should not be a niche, and here’s why

We live in the 21st century.

There are flying drones, vertical forests, and the Cloud.

Eco-friendly is not a niche, it’s part of our global lifestyle.

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Funding innovation from the balance sheet

Between custom documents, notes, envelopes, invoices, and others, excessive consumption is happening regardless if the paper is virgin or recycled.

Even in the digital age, we are still creating a ton of waste.

Studies carried out by Tufts University and the non-profit Forest Ethics estimate that the average American office worker uses a sheet of paper every 12 minutes. Once it goes in the trash, the life cycle ends and it goes to landfill.

When the paper has already been recycled, the lifespan has done its duty even if it immediately goes into the trash after one use. (Although it would be even better to throw it in the recycling bin, for it to be re-pulped once more.) With these simple actions, it keeps rotting paper out of our landfills.

Here is the main argument: Recycled paper costs more than virgin paper.

However, the less that ‘eco-friendliness’ is seen as something only certain companies offer, the more cost-effective it will be to produce for everyone.

It’s not rocket science, but even for that industry, there was a whole decade where billions of dollars went to waste, and even peoples’ lives were lost. But from this introductory period, the data was plentiful to start anew, with more efficient processes. First, a leader needed to emerge with the vision to create a better, safer path. It led to the choices that created the more sustainable, and much cheaper, reusable rockets we use today. Once the safest, most efficient method was developed, other companies and startups could improve upon it.

“No company can stop the flow of new technology,” according to Tony Schwartz in article Innovation as the Status Quo, if a company does not take advantage from technological advances, “someone else will.”

“Without innovation, businesses are woefully unprepared to capitalize on new market developments, adopt advancing technologies, and prevent competition from taking their market share. To survive, companies must be able to change with the times.”

For a company to be able to focus on making new and innovative choices, the old and harmful choices need to end. According to The World Counts statistics, every person uses more than two pieces of paper every hour.

It isn’t likely that people will stop being excessively wasteful, but we give ourselves a better long-term chance if those with purchasing powers opt for the less damaging counterparts at the source.

“When you are in a hole, the top priority is to stop digging.” — William Easterly

Industry research firm Gartner, Inc. estimates that as much as 3% of a company’s revenue is spent on paper, printing, filing, storing, and maintaining files of information.

In some cases, this cost can actually be lowered. It depends on material, fiber quality, and paper thickness.

Maybe you find the perfect paper with the right price, but it’s on the other side of the world. Choosing recycled paper that gets shipped to you from overseas defeats the environmental purpose and actually raises the cost.

Just like virgin paper is a product, so is recycled paper. The company you source from will always put their own mark-up on the price, so shopping around for everything is a must. By comparing prices on better (and more local) materials, you can ensure that you’re not only significantly lowering the cost of waste, which typically adds up to hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, but that you’re also creating an eco-friendly business.

But in many cases, the price of eco-friendly goods are increased because choosing better is a luxury. Companies see it, not as a global initiative that should be easy for everyone, but rather as a trend — to be capitalized upon.

This, and the additional steps to de-ink the pulp, remove adhesives, etc. are why there is an expectation that recycled paper costs more money. However, bulk purchases with higher quantities leads to a lower cost per unit anyway. For example, if 5,000 sheets of recycled paper is $100 but 5,000 virgin papers is $90, does saving money really outweigh the impact on our planet?

Be that as it may, funding innovation does require going against the status quo sometimes; because unlike trends, innovation doesn’t always make everyone happy. At least, not at first.

Profit versus Impact

Short-term monetary profits used to outweigh the long-term societal impacts.

But now, with Millennials as the main source of economic demand, expressions of environmentalism and social responsibility is the priority. For the generation left to handle the beginning atmospheric effects of climate change, this issue is not only pressing — it’s a direly needed paradigm shift.

Every industry is lowering their carbon footprint. Businesses already recognize the value and opportunity in offering real green solutions. The companies still relying on “greenwashing” (slapping the green movement on products with false environmental claims) are in for a rude awakening.

Regardless of whether your conspiracy theorist uncle believes it or not, our planet is suffering in all directions.

Our plastic waste is so bad, other animals are accidentally eating it and we have been eating those animals.

Everyone today is either a vegan eating soy (which promotes some cancer cell growth and impairs female fertility), or a meat-eater unknowingly eating (and passing on to their children) microscopic traces of plastic.

“Plastic residue has demonstrated negative effects on the environment and to the food chain by acting as vectors of harmful contaminants,” says Director of Science for Plastic Oceans International and Arizona State’s Rolesky.

Problems from eating plastic — just in case you were planning on it—include: premature births, asthma, cancer, miscarriage, male infertility, premature breast development, and abnormal male sexual development.
(Spoon University)

Swedish scientists have also shown that nanoplastics that entered the brains of fish through the food chain have led to abnormal behavior. “In contrast to the fish that were not fed nanoplastics, the fish that did eat them showed abnormal behavior: slower eating and hyperactive behavior.”

Rotting paper adds methane to the air we breathe. Wasteful single-use plastic adds contaminants to the food we eat. Humanity has been feeling the physical (and likely psychological) effects of these practices for a few decades now.

The consequences are clearly dire.

They affect our entire generation, perhaps already generations before us.

What we choose to do now, as a collective, will affect every generation of humans that will come after us.

So what are we doing to stop digging the hole and help ourselves?

It might seem counter-intuitive at first

Ford Motor Company, a heavy polluter, now have factories that use Geothermal cooling systems. They changed their energy consumption in both the production and the afterlife of their cars.

Disney has long since implemented a zero waste policy.

Johnson and Johnson own and operate a fleet of hybrid vehicles.

Even eBay has eco-initiatives.

These policies and movements require vision and capital to implement, but only bold leaders will take the initiative to grow a business into the future.

“For example, in 1975 Kodak created the first digital camera, but fearing the cannibalization of their film development business, quickly buried this innovation,” says the Founder and CEO of The Energy Project. By the time Kodak embraced the digital business in 2001, competitors were already in the lead. And “by 2012 Kodak, the former frontrunner in the photography industry declared bankruptcy.”

This fear can be instead seen as an opportunity, like with Apple, whose newest products often take sales from their existing products. When the iPod was at record high sales at 22 million units, Apple released the iPhone and it quickly consumed iPod sales. By intentionally sacrificing sales in one market category, they grow in another market category, and increase overall sales. They don’t give others the chance to take over, so they become their only competitor.

But ‘eco-friendliness’ is not a monopoly

As more companies feel empowered to join the eco-friendly movement, the options available to the public become more diverse — which means, like with everything in capitalism, there is competition on price and value.

“But it’s different for small businesses. I can’t afford to spend more money on being eco-friendly — that’s why ‘going green’ is a niche!”

Every day, regular people are creating great initiatives to protect our one & only planet.

On an individual scale, choosing how we store our food is as simple as it gets. Spending money on single-use plastics just tells them to keep making more.

The same goes for business expenses.

Regardless of the initiatives that a company may embrace, businesses must identify ways of becoming more efficient over time. That goes for both massive corporations, and small businesses too.

Any innovation leading to a more sustainable lifestyle for humanity has the potential to become the norm.

For many, things like eco-friendliness, animal rights, human rights… is already the norm.

But for others, it is simply a political idea that can be leveraged for sales.

By good people not joining the movement, there will only be those few who try to exploit it. And if the market is full of inauthentic expressions of environmentalism, consumers don’t even want to bother to dig for the big picture. To them, it’s another buzzword used for years. Forcing us to come full circle — and the eco market remains overpoweringly controlled by the few.

So what can we do?

There are ways for small businesses to implement eco-friendliness as a bare minimum company standard.

It all comes down to one thing… Simply stop paying for what you don’t want.

Here’s a great example: Restaurants and retail stores need packaging for their guests to carry-out food and products.

Instead of wasteful single-use plastic bags, there are better alternatives.

More studies are showing that progressive options such as tote bags or permanent carry-out container purchases have a positive effect on consumers, because the brand is expressing their values to protect the environment.

How different would your Starbucks experience be, if before payment they asked, “For here or to go?” And if your order is ‘for here’ then you are given a quality mug with your order, rather than a disposable plastic cup?

It doesn’t remove the problems altogether, but it is a small step in the right direction.

This can also be leveraged for existing marketing strategies, since the experience of using one of said mugs might lead to more purchases instead of keeping them on display shelves to collect dust.

Experiential marketing, in this case, happens to be a green initiative.

Replace what you’re already purchasing with eco-friendly goods

There are other ways to use marketing to be environmentally friendly.

Shopping local is an eco-friendly practice.

To maintain operation, industry supplies can come from local sources rather than getting shipped from overseas. For many businesses striving for sustainability, that can make a difference.

For restaurants who spend tons of money on outsourcing basic ‘fresh’ foods, it might be an environmentally-smarter, more cost-effective, and likely tastier choice to buy from the fresh market down the road.

But businesses still need to advertise themselves, and I’m not taking about big billboards or about vehicle wraps. Small business advertising is essential, even in this digital age.

1. As you leave a nail salon, their business cards are waiting at the door.
2. Hotels use a postcard in every room for greetings, contact information, and for other guest amenities like a television guide.
3. Reward cards, value cards, reminder slips, and get-a stamp-with-every-purchase cards are used by trades and retailers alike.
4. Even churches have visitor cards.

The takeaway: There are eco-friendly print solutions for all these goods.

From business cards to hangtags, to everything from sell sheets to office water cooler cups, companies can substitute the paper goods they are already producing or purchasing with local or environmentally-friendly alternatives.

Challenge the status quo… until it becomes status quo

While delivering maximum value to target audiences, strategic businesses will use every action to further communicate their mission and goals. And when these goals become the new status quo, it is time for new innovation.

Eco-friendliness should not be limited only to those who actively care.

Just like seatbelts were an innovation that was inefficiently sold at local gas stations (before all American cars were required to have them in 1966), it had to start out as costly and inefficient before it became part of our society.

Except now, it is our society that is becoming increasingly inefficient, possibly slower and more hyperactive as was seen in the Swedish plastic-eating fish experiment. As the decades go on, the perception that the public has about eco-friendliness is thankfully changing.

“There is growing interest among the consumers all over the world for protection of the environment,” according to the research paper titled, Green Marketing: a Study of Consumer Perception and Preferences in Gwalior City. “The green consumers are the main motivating force behind the green marketing process. It is their concern for environment and their own well being that drives demand for eco-friendly products, which in turn encourages improvements in the environmental performance of many products and companies.” For a capitalist society moving toward sustainability, this connection with consumers is what holds the most impact.

Part of branding is the perception the public holds for the business itself. When it comes to connecting with the public emotionally, the ones ahead of the curve are the brands with clearly defined and empathetic values.

They prioritize connecting to their audience.

The brands who demonstrate a serious commitment to the environment as a business strategy issue are not only progressive, they are positioning themselves to be long-lasting.

Both strategically and, unfortunately, literally.