Eco-friendly, sustainable and recycled – oh, my! Conversations about earth-friendly promo purchasing can become a minefield when suppliers and distributors all have their own takes on these important yet slippery terms. Couple that with hard-to-combat myths surrounding earth-conscious products, and well-meaning sustainability efforts rapidly get complicated.

We’ve collected five of the most common objections and misperceptions surrounding sustainable promo products, along with how promo companies are working to answer them.

1. “Sustainability just means eco-friendly, right?”

Despite the best of intentions, what counts as sustainable is hard to quantify – and there’s no centralized body that monitors or defines the terms.

“Admittedly, it’s a big tent,” says Emily Gigot, senior manager of sustainability at Top 40 supplier SanMar (asi/84863). “I find it can elicit blank stares, groans of frustration – and increasingly, excited nods.”

Sustainability isn’t just a synonym for something that’s recycled or organic, although such items could be part of a company’s overall sustainability strategy. At its most basic, the term refers to meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same. It’s often broken down into three pillars: environmental, economic and social. But the weight people and organizations give to each of those aspects depends on their own priorities and goals.

“I sympathize with the desire to boil it down to a simple definition, but would challenge people to think of sustainability as an approach to business versus an outcome or product attribute,” Gigot says. “While this can include looking at aspects of shipping costs or carbon emissions, sustainability can also apply to a company’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.”

“Admittedly, sustainability is a big tent. I find it can elicit blank stares, groans of frustration – and increasingly, excited nods.” Emily Gigot, SanMar

Kathy Cheng, president of Canadian supplier Redwood Classics Apparel (asi/81627) and a member of the Promo for the Planet advisory board, echoes Gigot’s sentiment. Cheng is passionate about the socioeconomic impact of supplier diversity. “We can do our part to contribute toward economic inclusion,” she says. “That’s also a sustainable business practice.”

Because sustainability encompasses so many things, distributors who want to help end-users meet their green goals should have an idea of what they’re looking for before reaching out to suppliers. Cheng notes that clients have sometimes called her and amorphously asked, “Do you have an eco-friendly product to recommend?”

Cheng will often respond with a question of her own: “What does sustainable mean to you?” Pierre Montaubin offers a similar approach. Because terms like natural, eco, earth-conscious and sustainable are subjective, the chief product and sustainability officer at Top 40 supplier Koozie Group (asi/40480) suggests distributors ask questions like, “How do you and your customer define sustainability? What do you think makes one product more suitable than another for the health of the planet? What info do you need to assure you that your guidelines are met? How can you articulate this?”

2. “I like sustainability, but it’s just too expensive.”

Products marked sustainable, organic, natural and eco-conscious often have an expensive aura that can be off-putting, especially in times of inflation. And there’s some truth to this myth: Sustainable raw materials typically cost more to produce because post-consumer recycled materials are more expensive to source than virgin materials, says Montaubin.

“Consciously made products, at this time at least, often do cost a little more,” agrees Kate Nash, director of promotional sales and marketing for supplier Raining Rose (asi/80489) and a member of the Promo for the Planet advisory board.

But that higher price tag doesn’t tell the whole story. Environmentalists point to the externalized costs behind materials like virgin plastic, which is sourced from fossil fuels and takes hundreds of years to biodegrade. Taking those into account, the price of conventionally made items would actually be much higher than sustainable goods.

Even without getting philosophical, however, many eco-conscious items don’t come at a premium for distributors and their end-users. Suppliers like Toddy Gear (asi/91411) and AAA Innovations (asi/30023) have made headlines for increasing their use of sustainable materials without raising prices. Toddy Gear has begun transitioning products like its microfiber screen cleaners to recycled polyethylene terephthalate, or rPET. AAA Innovations is also making promotional hard goods out of rPET polyester, in addition to other sustainable materials, like recycled cotton and nylon.

“If we can charge the same price for a green product and go to market with a USA-made, rPET product line at the same cost as our competitors’ non-rPET line, we lose a bit of margin, but our volume increases,” says Jason Emery, president of Toddy Gear.

Jeffrey Nanus, CEO of AAA Innovations, agrees that switching to sustainable materials has initially cost more for the company. “They do cost us more,” he says. “We just mark it up differently because we believe in it.”

As demand grows for sustainably sourced materials, however, that will help drive down the price of eco-conscious products in the future, Montaubin says.

3. “Sustainable items aren’t as good as regular products.”

There’s often a misperception that sustainable products are less effective and lower quality than conventional counterparts. Research from Emlyon business school in France found that one of the main reasons consumers are skeptical of sustainable products is an association with lack of quality or performance. Referred to sometimes as the “sustainability liability,” it’s the idea that manufacturers must have made compromises to various aspects of a product in order to make it more sustainable and still cost-effective.

It’s an obstacle that Nash of Raining Rose has come up against. 

“Of course, we understand the battle of finding sustainable componentry that isn’t brittle,” Nash says, “but we also argue that sustainably made products are the new quality standard — especially when you consider the manufacturing and the end product.”

Marketing and education efforts can help combat end-users’ outdated assumptions about the quality of eco-friendly products.

4. “Who cares where a product comes from?”

The lack of clarity on certain “eco” terms means suppliers and distributors must be as transparent as possible to earn trust. Only 38% of American believe corporations most or all of the time when they make environmental claims, according to a 2022 GreenPrint Survey.

That’s one of the reasons truthful, traceable labeling is of utmost importance when it comes to sustainability claims, Nanus says. “The supplier can’t hide the material content behind a dark curtain,” he says. “It needs to be out front, so people understand exactly what it is.”

For Nanus’ AAA Innovations, these efforts come in the form of large hang tags, clear labels and certificates. “You have to be able to substantiate,” he says, “and to be able to trace the product from conception to delivery. Customers will know the name of our factory, the mill we bought it from.”

Montaubin says he’s learned along the way that Koozie Group needs to dig for details “and double-check claims before launching any product dubbed eco-friendly,” he says, adding that others should do the same. He has even caught some of his own vendors presenting products as sustainable when they’re not. “We’ve turned down countless items over the last few years because they didn’t meet our internal standards for sustainability,” he says.

“The supplier can’t hide the material content behind a dark curtain. It needs to be out front, so people understand exactly what it is.” Jeffrey Nanus, AAA Innovations

Nash shares the view that transparency and documentation are key. That doesn’t make it easy or cheap, but she offers some concrete suggestions: “Manufacturers can show their processes and create content that allows customers to take a peek on factory floors,” she says. “Engage in conversations, answer questions. Be vulnerable. Every manufacturer has targets they’ve met, and ones they’re still working to meet.”

Distributor CoolPerx (asi/556047) created a climate cost index to ensure the credibility of its products’ sustainability claims, says Lou Elliott-Cysewski, co-founder/CEO and a member of the Promo for the Planet advisory board. The scorecard is based on a product’s climate and social impacts on things like recycled materials and fair labor. “All of our claims are backed by data,” Elliott-Cysewski adds. “Anybody can ask for it and get it.”

Elliott-Cysewski says putting the tough questions to suppliers will sometimes raise red flags.

“Somebody who’s greenwashing won’t know things about the product like the carbon footprint,” she says. “They should be communicating in a precise and clear way, even if it’s a range, like approximate water usage, or a region (versus a specific location) where a cotton is grown.”

Montaubin encourages distributors to follow Elliott-Cysewski’s example and not take suppliers’ green claims for granted: “You’ll make us better suppliers if you push back and ask questions.”

5. “My customers aren’t interested in all this sustainability stuff.”

Some distributors haven’t yet put a priority on sustainability in their pitches because they think their own customers don’t care. That’s a missed opportunity, according to Nash: “The truth is, consumers are prioritizing consciously made items — sustainable, inclusive, ethical — and many don’t care to receive items that aren’t relevant to them. Just because an end-user doesn’t request it specifically doesn’t mean they don’t care.”

Countless surveys show that consumers do, in fact, care about sustainability. A 2021 study from First Insight, for example, found that people across all generations – from baby boomers to Gen Z – are willing to spend more for sustainable options. Nearly 90% of Gen X consumers said, for example, that they would be willing to spend an extra 10% or more for sustainable products. Just two years earlier, First Insight found that only 34% of Gen X consumers were willing to pay such a surcharge.

In addition, the forthcoming Ad Impressions study found that nearly half (46%) of consumers will think more favorably about the advertiser if the promo product they receive is environmentally friendly.

That growing consumer demand – coupled with investor environmental, social and governance (ESG) demands and increased regulatory requirements in many parts of the world – have translated to an increased focus on sustainability among corporations as well.

Despite this, the myth among distributors persists that their clients don’t care about the production or materials behind a promo item that lands in their hands, Nanus says.

“I’ve had this conversation with every single distributor in this country,” Nanus says. “They say, ‘Well, maybe next time.’ But if they can buy something at the same price for the non-sustainable item that everyone else is selling, why not do the right thing? That’s a great message.”

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