Sustainable promotional items – it’s as easy as this
Sustainable promotional items – isn’t that a contradiction in terms? By no means. There are already a multitude of sustainable give-aways with which you can, on the one hand, replace vile plastic products and, on the other hand, achieve a particularly intense promotional impact.
Using sustainable give-aways for promotional measures has now actually become as easy as 1, 2, 3. There are numerous alternatives to plastic: whether renewable raw materials or recycled or plastic-free materials, the range of sustainable promotional items is now huge. Including in the FLYERALARM online shop. For this reason, the product managers at FLYERALARM have put together a short best-of list featuring alternatives to plastic.
Essentially, the boundaries between the categories are fluid. Give-aways made from renewable raw materials are logically usually plastic-free. And products that are upcycled from agricultural crop residues also consist of renewable raw materials from a technical perspective.
The sustainable promotional items have therefore been categorised by their primary product characteristics.
Promotional items made from renewable raw materials
The recipe for sustainable promotional items is often very simple: take a successful give-away, replace the plastic with a renewable raw material, package the entire thing in recycled paper or card, and the eco give-away is complete. Products made from wood-free paper, grass paper, cork, bamboo or certified organic cotton are particularly popular at the moment.
Wood-free paper bags made from cotton, grass fibres, straw or production residues from jeans
Bags made from grass paper up to 40% manufactured from hay from the Swabian Alps
Desk organiser made from bamboo bamboo grass is cut and simply grows again
Recycled and upcycled promotional items
Turn old into new – this applies not only to returnable bottles and drinks cans but also to numerous plastics as well as industrial and agricultural production and crop residues. Various manufacturers of sustainable promotional items collect these production residues and transform them into brand-new give-aways.
SCHNEIDER Pen RECO casing made from 92% recycled plastic, awarded the Blue Angel environmental label
Impact AWARE™ rPET cooler backpacks made from recycled PET bottles, saves 12 litres of water during production
FARE recycled umbrella cover made from recycled plastics (OEKO-TEX® certification)
Plastic-free and low-plastic promotional items
Run-of-the-mill advertising can often be transformed into sustainable give-aways simply by replacing plastic with more resource-friendly materials. In this case, the “simple” part applies to you as the advertiser. After all, it often takes years for the idea for a sustainable alternative to be transformed into an actual product in the FLYERALARM online shop … which makes it even better that you can now get your hands on your individual eco-friendly promotional items in just a few days.
Wheat straw sunglasses frame and earpieces made from wheat straw fibres
Stainless steel straw set reusable straws made from stainless steel
tic tacs® in paper packets plastic-free and vegan packaging
What makes promotional items sustainable?
Fundamentally, however, it should be evident that promotional items are only sustainable if they have an effect. After all, genuine sustainability cannot be limited to the production process of give-aways – the entire advertising process must be designed to be sustainable.
While it is true that less energy is consumed and waste is avoided when using bamboo instead of plastic and when employing recycled materials during production, energy is still required to transform old returnable bottles into chic gym bags and plastic waste into pens. Even organic cotton, bamboo and compostable alternative materials have to be produced first.
If these products are designed aimlessly and distributed at random, don’t fit the target group or fail to even reach it, the result is nothing more than a waste of money and energy.
However, another picture emerges when the opposite is true. Sustainable promotional items that fit the target group, promising high everyday use and so calling your advertising to mind over and over again, represent a win-win situation: they build on your image as a responsible company. At the same time, you replace conventional products with sustainable promotional items and so reduce resource and energy consumption across the entire value creation chain.
View all sustainable promotional items
Using sustainable give-aways for promotional measures has now become as easy as 1, 2, 3. Find out more in the latest blog post supported by FLYERALARM.
