If you're concerned about your company's environmental footprint, you may consider reviewing your marketing collateral. From using alternative materials to eliminating the need for these materials entirely, there are a range of new choices available to the savvy marketer and with an increasingly environment-conscious consumer base, your sustainability efforts won't go unnoticed. By JP Collins, Pylon Studios

Dont Use It , Lose It

In a lot of cases you don't need to produce printed collateral at all. Email marketing, websites, and downloadable documents have replaced a lot of what was printed onto paper,making information cheaper to distribute and easier to access.

1. Digital vs. paper. Do you remember the promise of the paperless office? That promise never did really pan out. In fact, because of computers we now use more paper than we ever did. One survivor of that promise, however, has become the champion of digital formats and most of us use it every day: the Portable Document Format. PDF was created for the paperless office but instead of going the way of that concept it was saved by the advent of the internet. The PDF is a great way to send your information to clients. It's a read-only format that can be protected but it can also be read by search engines. Additionally, copyright information and keywords can be embedded into the meta-data of the file.


2. For your websiteƒ†â€™ƒÂ¢¢â€šÂ¬…¡ƒ¢â‚¬Å¡ƒâ€š‚¦.You can create PDFs for data-sheets, price-sheets, white papers or brochures and post them on your web site. Since a PDF can be read by search engines, it's a great format for this kind of information.


3. Attachments vs. envelopes and stamps. A proposal or price sheet in PDF saves time, money and resources. At Pylon Studios we use PDFs for our invoices, price sheets and proposals. We then send them via email rather than by post. This saves time as well as postage costs.


4. And speaking of emailƒ†â€™ƒÂ¢¢â€šÂ¬…¡ƒ¢â‚¬Å¡ƒâ€š‚¦.Email marketing is a very effective means of direct marketing and although it hasn't completely replaced direct mail it can certainly reduce the need for it. Use an email campaign to announce a new product or stay in touch with clients.


5. A word on websites. Your website is the place to send potential clients and for them to find you. Your website is your brochure, business card, telephone directory ad, and repository of customer-directed content. It does all these things and more and is available 24/7 anywhere there is an internet connection.

Of course you still need to have business cards that goes without saying. And many businesses still need some of the things mentioned above, like brochures or other printed collateral. What to do? Why not use fibers from plants that require much less time, energy and materials to grow? There are quite a few alternative paper-making fibers that are much more renewable than trees.

Traditional Fibers Making a Comeback

When the United States was a young country, two of the biggest crops were hemp and flax. These crops made up a large percentage of the economy and had both agricultural and industrial uses. Today they are either maligned because of an outlaw relative or have taken a back seat to other crops like cotton. And both hemp and flax contain properties that improve our health.

1. Industrial hemp is one of the strongest fibers in the world. It produces a high-quality fiber that can be used by itself or blended with postconsumer waste to make a better, stronger recycled paper. Hemp produces a high yield of material per acre. It also can be used as a great rotational crop in some areas giving farmers another crop to grow to keep their fields healthy.


2. Flax produces linen, linseed oil and requires less water to grow than cotton. Flax has been grown in nearly every state in the U.S. Like hemp, it can produce cloth as well as paper. Flax is the reason currency is so durable and tea bags so practical. It's also a beautiful plant and varieties have been introduced to gardens for non-commercial uses.

The New Crop of Paper-Making Fibers

Ever hear of bagasse or kenaf? I hadn't either until the last couple of years.

1. Bagasse (buh-'gas) is the "waste" product from sugar cane production. It's already used for paper towels and costs less than hard wood pulp. Lately, I've seen it used for hot cups (for coffee), clam shell containers and paper plates and is compostable. Neenah paper company produces office-quality paper from it.


2. Kenaf (kuh-'naf) is an African plant that can out produce a southern pine plantation in useable fiber by two to three times. Kenaf grows fast in climates where cotton is grown but flax cannot. It produces less lignin than wood fiber which makes it less acidic and requires less energy and fewer harmful chemicals to prepare the pulp for paper. Currently you can buy Kenaf-based paper through a large office supply company but the content is very low in Kenaf fibers.

Other Alternatives That May Surprise You

1. Bananas? I recently bought a spiral bound notebook made from banana fibers mixed with recycled paper content. The paper is made using the stem from a banana bunch called a pinzote. Banana production creates a great deal of agricultural waste through discarded pinzotes. The paper made from pinzotes is mostly used for children's notebooks and text books. The notebook I bought was marketed to school children, but the paper is great.


2. Bamboo seems to be the rock star of the green movement. Bamboo is being used for everything from flooring, to kitchen cutting boards to clothing. It can of course also be used for paper. And why not, bamboo is a fast growing relative to grass that produces high-quality fiber with a high yield per acre.

Unfortunately (and you knew there was a bit of a catch) many of these alternative fibers are not as available as tree-based paper; its still hard to find alternatives to wood fiber paper in a retail setting. Even if you cant make the best use of alternative paper materials, you can still reduce your footprint by using recycled paper stock and vegetable based inks. It takes less energy and resources to produce recycled paper than stock made of virgin materials , in other words, trees.

Look for office paper that has recycled post-consumer content. (I like to look for percentages of over 30%, preferably 100% post-consumer content.) The important thing is to request these products. Ask your designer, printer, paper supplier, or office supply company about using recycled or non-tree paper , you may be surprised at the options available to you.

Check out these resources for more information:

Costa Rica Natural: banana fiber paper, cigar paper, coffee paper.

Crane & Company: hemp, flax, kenaf and various reused fibers.

Domtar: bagas, hemp.

EcoSource: fax, hemp.

Green Field: hemp, paper with seeds embedded.

Living Tree Paper Co.: hemp.

Vision Paper Co.: kenaf.

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Pylon Studios is a creative marketing and design agency in San Francisco, Calif. In 2006 the company underwent a series of audits by the San Francisco Department of the Environment, evaluating water use, energy use, equipment, lighting, and cleaning supplies. As part of this process, Pylon drafted a green business policy statement (PDF) listing the sustainable practices it has adopted thus far. As a green business, Pylon seeks to work with like-minded businesses who strive to incorporate practices that improve our health, community, and the environment.