Social responsibility in business: Ice cream and more!

It's not all about the $$$$ anymore

In todays world owning a business is not just about the bottom line anymore. Or at least, at the bottom line, it's not just dollars being counted. Environmental impact, social treatment of your stakeholders and providing opportunities for personal growth to your staff are counted equally as much when you're company is rated for social responsibility.

Creative names for icecream: Chocolate Therapy

Two Scoops

It all started I guess with Ben & Jerry's icecream. Two idealist hippies who didn't set out to change the world really, it just happened that they were doing what needed to be done. What they were about is not just making a buck, but actually helping their community. Getting their brownies from local ladies and making sure their chocolate wasn't harvested by child-slaves was a matter of course to them as well as making the best tasting icecream in the world. Somehow, against all odds, these two idealist created a multimillion dollar brand.

It's not just about the flavor

Sure, the icecream is good, some of the best ever, but only some off. That oddly named Haagen Dazs is at least equal in taste and well 31 flavors have some really good icecream as well. The thing that makes people buy B&J's icecream is the fact that they get to feel like they are making a contribution to something good in the world. For a couple of dollars they get to feel like they're saving the rainforest, promoting peace and helping a third world child go to college. What they're selling is not icecream, it's a whole new way of looking at the world.

Now, business has forever changed under the influence of these and others such hippies (think Google and don't be evil) and if you're going to promote your brand name you must do so in a way that reflects your brands responsible and environmentally concious way of doing things. A gift bag from Holden Bags might be just the way to communicate that. These bags are durable and when imprinted with your logo they say: This business cares about the environment enough to give durable stuff instead of less than useful plastic items that fill our wastebaskets.

Wine tote

Making the world a little better

For tradeshows or festive occasions, buying these tote bags bulk is made easy by the quick service at Holden Bags. Your design can be uploaded at their website and you can get a quote from them in under 15 minutes. One of my favorite bags is the cooler-bag, a supermarket necessity if you don't live real close to the store. It keeps your frozen items frozen untill you get home. Giving that away with some Chunky Monkey or Cherry Garcia icecream in it would be a great parting gift after a long day at a tradeshow. Or perhaps the wine-tote is the better choice, of course stocked with some fine California organic wine, red and white please.

Now, I'm not comparing the impact of reusable tote bags to the impact of Ben & Jerries icecream, but not all of us are meant to change the world so profoundly as those two did. Instead, we get to do our little bit for the environment and for social responsibility. We get to eat the icecream instead of making it and we get to choose environmentally friendly, reusable totebags for our next event. We do our part in making this world just a little better, one scoop or one bag at a time.

Green is hot! Environmentally friendly, sustainable grocery bags

Going Green

Companies are doing it all over the world, because Green is hot! Thank goodness we the concerned consumers have finally gotten through to major corporations! Green and environement friendly is beginning to spread! More then ever we are learning that the choices we make affect our environment and we are learning to make responsible choices, choosing things that last over things that are fast.

I was at a trade show last night which consisted solely of fashion made responsibly. Fashion with a story attached. Fabrics of today don't destroy our environment, but are made of renewable sources: bamboo, hemp, soy and even fast growing trees. Every article in the show had a unique story to it. There is so much to tell about just the fabrics. Organic cotton, now just 5% of the worlds cotton production is made without pesticides. Regular old cotton uses about a kilo of pesticides to produce 3 ounces of cotton. Ridiculous amounts right, but that's what the lady there told us. Even if half of that is true it's still an enormous amount of pressure to put on our environment. At the end of the show she handed us all a cotton tote bag with some natural soaps and detergents, a lipbalm and some coupons in them.

Environment friendly little green bag

In Holland recently George Baker had a hit with a tune called “Little Green Bag”. Not high culture, it was just a little ditty, but the fact that he had a huge hit with it means that he's got his fingers right on the pulse of contemporary society. Green it hot and green tote bags are not just for hippies anymore. Now everyone can make a green, environment friendly choice. Green is fashionable, ecofriendly is in.

Now, shifting our societies from “use-em-up and throw-em-out” to completely “cradle to cradle, let's throw out our garbage-bins alltogether cause we don't need them anymore” is a daunting task which has been set in motion by the forces of concerned consumers. Now it is time to jump on the bandwagon and make sure your customers see you as green, environment friendly and with concern and care for our planet. One of the ways you can do this is by buying bulk tote bags. Tote bags have a high visibility as they get used and reused, over and over untill completely torn and tattered. And having your logo imprinted on one of these tote bags is now easier than ever! If you click the link above you can see many examples of what is possible for promotional purposes .

Trade shows, non profits, big or small everyone goes friendly to the environment

The best part about buying bulk tote bags like these at Holden bags is that it's really simple and fast. Their website is absolutely clear and they have a great customer support service which means that you have a real person to speak about your order with on the telephone within minutes and most of their tote bags are in stock so they can have the product ready to ship to you in three days! Think of a great promotional activity today and implement it this week. Show the world you have a heart for the environment.

The service is awesome and proof that environement friendly doesn't have to mean slow and oldfashioned. Plus you don't have to order thousands of bags to get a decent price-quote. Orders can be as low as 100 pieces and you can be assured of the same type of service that the big guys get and for many products you can get a price quote within 15 minutes! Holden bags has been in bussiness since 1975 and growing ever since. They show the same care wether you're huge, like Coca Cola or the Humane Society or just a small shop like the one giving the trade show I was at yesterday.

Paper or plastic? Neither! Durable sustainable grocery bags!

Green choices

If you care about health the environment and just plain taste, grocery shopping can be an enjoyable task these days. In most markets these days there's a good supply of the kinds of foods that really feed you, both your body and your soul. Factory food, fast food and sugary snackfoods are hollow, devoid of wholeness and goodness. They may squelch your hungerpangs but do very little to really satisfy your actual dietary needs.

Finding the right produce to feed your family can be fun! Checking around for some nice eggplant or bell peppers, squeezing the oranges to make sure they're nice and juicy, choosing the best organic potatoes for a casserole. Rice from organic farms in India, slave-free chocolates in dark, milk of hazelnut, cheese in many flavors, rolls, meat substitutes, milk substitutes made from rice or soy: with so much to choose from, isn't it odd that at the register we still have only one choice: Paper or Plastic?

Drawbacks of Paper and Plastic

There is much to be said about the drawbacks of paper and plastic bags. Paper has the rap for being the more ecological choice of the two, but America alone uses 10 billion paper bags each year. That's 14 million trees, used for a product we tend to throw away after one use. In addition in producing the bags a whole lot water and chemicals are used. Plastic bags are made of finite resources of course. Recycling would be an option for both, but in reality less than 15% of all paper and plastic bags are recycled. The rest is landfill and litter.

Viable Alternative

Fortunately there is a viable alternative. Now you can buy wholesale reusable grocery bags with a choice of logo imprints. In Europe, most supermarkets now offer you a choice of plastic or reusable (paper never really caught on over here. The reusables can be bought right at the counter and because they are relatively expensive to buy, most people bring their own bags to the grocery store. This is great advertizing for the store as people walk around toting their bags and this means it gets a lot of views.

Xmas Dinner in a bag

These grocery bags come in a variety of sizes. They're great as a promotional item too. Aside from just having it on say at the register so people can be offered an alternative to paper or plastic, think about buying the wholesale reusable grocery bag as an item for creating special offers in.

Think about a Christmas special: A beautiful, reusable grocery bag with your logo on it, filled with goodies that will make a wonderful Christmas dinner. Organic yams and marshmallows, pumpkin and even a turkey so your customers can have a merry Christmas without the need for shopping! Invite people to sign up for just such a package and watch the orders come in for “X-mas dinner in a bag”. You can find the bag to fit your needs at Holden Bags .

Of course, with Xmas dinner in a bag a great succes, consider Easter breakfast in a bag, with some nice chocolate croissants, eggs and rolls, some of those yummy hot cross buns: you know what your customers like to buy. Prebagging it for them is a great way to drive your sales to new hights, get your logo out into your community and better serve your customers!