With an abundance of companies going green, and a corresponding explosion of green themed conferences sprouting up, this is to be applauded. And yet, there's a remnant of the old paradigm that sticks up like a weed out of the smooth green path: Swag. You know, those little things that companies give away at conferences with the hope they'll stay in your mind. Those little things add up to a lot. Multiply each attendee with a bag full of knick knacks, many of which are made from non renewable materials, are not recyclable, and you've got the potential for an enormous amount of waste, and resources used.

Eco Imprints shows a different way. Rather than being a quantity driven tschotske pimp, they are a company committed to sourcing and creating memorable, sustainable, and custom tailored eco friendly promotional items that will serve their clients, recipients, and the planet equally well. And they have a few tricks up their sleeve:

The founder, John Borg, has decades of experience in branding, marketing, and design, having run Wishbone Creative, a firm that has worked with some of the biggest names in business, including Electronic Arts, Levi Strauss and Kodak.

So what you get with with Eco Imprints is a company that has really done it's homework to find the greenest, most high quality products, and combines that with a deep expertise in how to best leverage the goods you do give away for the maximum impact.

What does eco friendly swag look like? A particularly amazing example is their Custom Message Bean Plants. These beans can be inscribed by a laser with your company name, logo, or a simple message, and when they grow, that message reads on the plant, remaining for month, and the plant living for a year.

They also do the usual suspects quite well, too: That standby the pen can come in the form of sustained yield solid white birch. Bamboo. Or recycled plastic. Pencils can be made of recycled newspaper. They do larger, more complex items as well: the Eco Plasma Jacket is made from 100% recycled polyester. Several bags and totes are made from recycled PET (soda/water bottle) plastic.

Beyond just being a green promotional item purveyor, they also offer sustainability consulting, currently in the realm of discerning ways to green your marketing efforts, and creating green product lines for company stores. They've done the research to find the manufacturers of greener products, and can benefit you with that knowledge.

It's clear that Eco Imprints cares about more than selling green swag. They also talk about it, and the areas surrounding it, in the entertaining, educating read, http://sustainableswag.blogspot.com/ . Subjects range from the recent move by major city mayors to phase out water bottles in city offices to having the courage to give kudos to competitors.

Eco Imprints is the real deal. Consider them next time you've got some promoting to do. I recommend their PDF catalog, it's much more attractive and thorough than the site.

Readers: What are some of your favorite eco friendly promotional items? How have you creatively reframed what you do in terms of giveaway items?

Paul Smith is a sustainable business innovator, the founder of GreenSmith Consulting, and has an MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio School of Management in San Francisco. His overarching talent is "bottom lining" complex ideas, in a way that is understandable and accessible to a variety of audiences, internal and external to a company.

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