Monday Mar 30, 2009
Had a good time cooking dinner by candlelight during Earth Hour last Saturday. My city participated, but I didn't perceive a significant dimming of the downtown glow from my front porch. There are some great photos and videos scattered around the web, and the photo of the Toronto Hydro control room in this article is cool.
Alas, if you view the photo collection on the Earth Hour site, you'll see shots of an ill-considered promotional campaign in Australia. Yes, those are cardboard people and other wrappers put around trees to tout an event about Earth consciousness. This is definitely one to share with the FAIL Blog. Sigh.
While I'm on the subject of resource depletion, I helped Roger Meike, Assistant Director of Sun Labs and SunSPOTS overlord, unpack an Asus Eee PC the other day. It's a pretty nifty device, but the un-boxing experience was a festival of plastic and other packaging. It's hard to do justice in photos to the absurd use of adhesive clear wrap - around the mouse that was then sealed in a plastic bag; on every surface of the monitor except the screen, ad nauseum. Were the Eee PC sentient, I fear it would be diagnosed with mysophobia.
Tuesday Nov 04, 2008
I recently received a big box of irony in the mail:
The package from EnvironPAK encouraged me to "think inside the box" about sustainable packaging. Since I wasn't expecting anything, I felt a little anticipation as I opened the box:
That's right. This company had essentially sent me an empty box, complete with "recyclable, compostable, biodegradable, sustainable" filler material, to trumpet the sustainability of their packaging products. Sorry, guys, the DVD and paper booklet don't count as "content" in a world where you could have uploaded the video to a website and emailed people an invitation to view it. You could even broaden your reach by posting the video to YouTube.
Needless to say, this outreach campaign, and the follow-up glossy brochure the company sent to me this week, made me laugh but also really chaps my hide. Really, did the "VP of Sales & Marketing" who included his card with both mailings not pause for a second when endorsing this approach? Well, I had to write an email to him and express my point of view:
Bill -
I wish I could thank you for your marketing materials, but I can't. While your stated objective is to create environmentally friendly packaging materials, I have to wonder how your company's sustainability values escaped those who planned and executed your marketing campaign. It is painfully ironic, and somewhat outrageous, to create, print, assemble and ship an essentially empty box to me and countless others, with the purpose of encouraging sustainable business practices. Even the DVD, though I'm sure is well produced, is unnecessary in this age of networked media available via the internet. Following up with yet another piece of mail just accentuated the wastefulness of your approach.
I hope that in the future Enviropak will endeavor to "walk the walk" and not undermine your product's credibility with a lack of self awareness in getting your message out.
Regards,
Lori
*sigh*
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