Earthbound salad containers, yea, yea, recycled too!

Naked®.  Yes, Naked®, the attention-grabbing word and tree-huggin’ juice brand recently announced its transition to 100% consumer recycled plastic for their bottles.  ETA 2010.

The reNEWabottle will be used for all Naked Juice flavors, each 32 ounces of flavor.  The transition will decrease new plastic consumption by 1 million pounds per year and oil use by 8,192 barrels.  According to the press release, this is the equivalent of taking 497 cars off the road.  Neat.

Naked juices moves to recycled plastics

Another company, with a less exotic, more wholesome name, Earthbound Farm will also be using 100% recycled plastics in its packaging.  With Earthbound’s recent switch to 100% plastic for its clamshell-style salad containers, the company has conserved 424,000 million BTUs of energy, a lot of water and some other stuff.

This is awesome for plastics packaging in the US.  It also gives bottling companies more incentive to invest in recycling plants.

>> Earthbound Farms
>> Naked Juice

When I told a long-time pal of mine about this blog, he said I should write an article about UPS.  At the time I had no idea UPS had a green initiave…which I’m sure I could have assumed, since most companies do.  But UPS is all brown and not necessarily associated with green and blah blah blah.

UPS working to reduce its footprint

So, when I came accross this ClimateBiz article about the hybrid vehicles used by UPS I thought of my brown buddy.  With its huge fleets, UPS has been focused on increasing efficiency and reducing its carbon footprint.  UPS Airlines’ has 262 jets, with 1800 flights per day.  With this workload, its important for UPS to set emissions goals, such as reducing emissions of UPS Airlines by 20% by 2020.

At the current time, UPS has more than 1,800 vehicles powered by alternative fuels.  In 2008 alone, its alternative-fuel vehicle fleet was increased by 30%, this includes hydraulic and hybrid-electric delivery trucks.

>> UPS Sustainability
>> Related Article at GreenBiz

I ran across a pretty robust green ad network, Sustain Lane.  Some of the publishers are Backyard Nature, Green Car, Green Options, and a whole slew of others.

Sustain Lane Green Ad Network

Ad networks typically offer a lower CPM from contacting the website directly.  It also allows a decent website to keep its direct CPMs up, while selling off its remaining or remnant inventory to said network.  This allows sites to keep their brand elevated, while avoiding the ‘easy go around,’ Google content network.

There are quite a few network channels for advertisers to target, including Healthy & Beauty, Home & Garden, Cause & Awareness, Green Auto, B2B, Organic Food, and others.  Often segmenting and other demographic targeting will increase the CPM, so its a trade-off.

Sustain Lane also has a number of advertising solutions, such as display (standard and rich media), video, takeovers and roadblocks, emails, microsites, widgets, and webinars.  Not bad.

If you have a green product your advertising, I’d certainly check it out.

>> Sustain Lane, Green Ad Network homepage

>> Sustain Lane green guide website

Recycle

I was reading an article today on Environmental Leader about the plastics industry increasing its recycling efforts.  It made me think about packaging for other items as well…like video cards.

The other day I was in Best Buy looking for a TV tuner and I found myself in and around the video cards.  Four or five years ago, when I last purchased a video card (before moving to a laptop full-time), there were colors everywhere!  Packaging was easily 19x the size of the video card!  Last week, the packaging that displayed before me was light, agile and somewhat boring.

I’ve noticed this with other items as well, like when I purchased my new cell phone.  Everything was stuffed in there so tight that everything would not have fit if you emptied everything on a bed and randomly jammed it back in so  you could return the item as quickly as possible.

I’m sure this phenomena, however, is in correlation with an attempt to cut costs.  But anyway, the article about the plastics dudes…

PWP Industries recently announced that it is to open a second recycling facility with the annual capacity to recycle 40 million pounds of post-consumer plastics.  It is expected to open in the second quarter of 2010.  There is a second phase of the plan, which will roll-out the following year.

Another bottled water company, Native Waters, LLC, is introducing a product Native Water, which boasts environmentally friendly packaging.  The European plastics industry launched a plastics challenge, dubbed “The Plastics 2020 Challenge” to promote doubling the rate of plastics packaging by 2020.  Hopefully the US will follow suit.

>> Related Article on Environmental Leader

Live on the Green concert series in Nashville, TN

Lightning 100, Nashville’s Independent Radio, along with Team Green will be sponsoring the Live On the Green concert series, to begin in September.  I checked out their website, which as of today has absolutely no information…unless I sign up to receive updates.  Odd.

I assume LiveontheGreen.net is the concert’s main website–and there are no dates, nothing.  You need to sign-up, which isn’t a huge deal, but now I’m thinking emails from green builders and green giants.  Just give me some information so I can put you in my calendar.  Maybe no dates yet, but any info would be great - I did just come to your website.  I’ve never really seen anything like this before…

Mayor of Nashville, Karl Dean, announced that the Square will host six Thursday night concerts beginning in September.  The concert looks to promote more live music events and infuse Nashville’s oh-so “the scene” music industry with its larger business community.  Team Green will contribute by providing recycling, etc…

>> Live on the Green website

This is kind of crazy - but GM may be changing its logo.  It has yet to confirm this change, but it is all part of a GM rebranding session to show consumers its learner and greener.

GM logo asks, am I the next to go?

The bulk, molasses-filled, 10-ton sloth wants people to know that GM is a quick decision maker, changing to not only our needs, but the needs of the environment.  Ed Welburn, GM’s VP of design will be in charge of studyign name and logo changes.  This, to me, seems more difficult than one might originally think.  Just look at the NBA’s Washington Wizards or Charlotte Bobcats.  Heck, even throw in my Orlando Magic.  Each, I’m sure, spent countless hours and money coming up with a brandable logo and color scheme–all to come up with eh?  Even the Jacksonville Jaguars of the NFL ended up with a less-than desirable logo, which I wouldn’t dream of sporting on a ball cap.

The change comes with some slimming of the company, as GM looks to cut 35% of its execs, from 1,300 suits to 850 by the end of the year.  GM also plans to flatten the organization, providing better and direct communication between top and bottom (I assume).

Like a phoenix (that was given 100 bizillion dollars and 1,000 chances to get it right), GM plans to emerge victorious from the ashes.

Greenpeace

In seemingly no particular definable time interval, Greenpeace offers up a Guide to Greener Electronics, a ranking of the top electronics companies and their greenness.

Actually, I’m a liar; later on it states that the guide is updated every three months.  Anyway, the ranking criteria for the guide are, that the company:

• Cleans up their products by eliminating hazardous substances.
• Takes back and recycles their products responsibly once they become obsolete.
• Reduces the climate impacts of their operations and products.

Greenpeace includes a simple write-up for each of the companies on the list.

Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics

Nokia comes in at #1, with a 7.45 rating.  Samsung then Sony Ericsson round out the top 3.  In the middle of the pack is Apple at4.7 and Dell at 3.9…which had the heated “greener than god,” argument, in which the Better Business Bureau eventually settled the matter with a big ‘w’ for Apple.

Scores are on a 51 pt scale, then calibrated from 1 to 10, for simplicity sake.

>> Greenpeace Green Guide page

Hagermeyer Green Book

Hagermeyer North America introduced its 2009-2010 Green Book: Sustainable Solutions, a 210-page listing of 1500 green products, from its 60+ supplier partners.

Senior Vice President of Product Strategy & Marketing, Brad Pulver, states “in our new Green Book, we showcase products and services from industry-leading manufacturers to create a convenient, one-stop-shop for our customers who want to make more sustainable choices in their business.”

I checked out the website and it’s basically a PDF minefield. But for those how trust Hagermeyer, it’s a safe listing of green products and services. The book includes Energy Management, Test & Measure, Building Products, Water Management, Industrial & Safety products, and “Educate Yourself.”

>> Hagermeyer website
>> Related article at Market Watch

Green advertising in magazines is on the rise.  According to TerraChoice, advertisements that make environmental claims in six national magazines are up to 10.4% in 2008, from 2.4% in 1992.  GTAN has had a few articles about this previously, concerning the greenwash effect and false green promises.

Increased "green claims" magazine advertising

As a recent article in the Examiner states, the FTC is in charge of regulating claims for product advertising.   With the giant explosion that is green advertising, methinks the FTC needs some help.  The FTC’s 2009 budget is $259 million, which includes monitoring and regulating identity theft, credit fraud, advertising shtuff, and monopolies.  Hm.

Since green products typically cost more, this is a real rabid punch to the kidney of American consumers.

And yes, we all realize magazine advertising with green claims is a bit ironic…