SIA The Intelligent Partner - Winter 2008 - (Page 17) | E N V I R O N ME NT – S USTA I N A BI LI TY | BY JO N RUCKER | entire show. Keep it simple, use just one bottle and refill it FOR FREE at the Sessions booth or at one of the abundant water fountains around the Mandalay Bay facility. Vendor Idea: Supply a water cooler in your booth for people to re-fill their water bottles. It will keep everyone hydrated and happy (that means more orders for you!). The Water Cooler Challenge: Refill and re-use a single water bottle this Vegas. Buy one bottle at the beginning of the show and keep it with you all week by refilling it for FREE. Green Benefits: If every attendee uses just one water bottle for the week, then we can prevent the unnecessary use of at least 117,000 bottles. Greener Benefits: Over $320,000 in our collective pocket. here: 390,000 lbs. = 195 TONS!!! That’s the weight of 87 Ford Explorers that we carry home in our bags. Something is not quite right with this situation… Those tons of paper cost loads of money to print and are often shipped by air from halfway around the world to be glanced at for a few minutes. Sometimes they make it home in a briefcase, but too often they are carelessly tossed into a garbage can with a random Nevada landfill as the final destination. SIA members: if you are going to toss a catalogue, make sure it’s into a recycle bin! The dilemma is that we need catalogues to buy and sell, but we don’t use them as well as we could. The first steps to solving this dilemma include the following simple solutions for vendors, sales reps and retailers. Retailers: 1. Opt for electronic catalogues and forms when possible. At a minimum, instead of taking two printed copies, only take one and then utilize the electronic copy for your additional one. We do need to exchange some paper, that’s just the way it is, but we can definitely reduce the amount of paper by at least half. Think for just a moment before you pick up catalogues and order forms this year. To quote Boulder-based The Samples, “Take what you need and leave the rest.” The Paper Cut Challenge: Cut paper use at SIA.08 by 50%. Only take or give out paper products that are absolutely necessary. Green Benefits: By cutting paper use in half, we will save approximately 97 tons of paper. We will prevent more than 540,000 pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere while reducing our checked baggage load. Think about it: no more fear of that $75 overweight bag charge. Greener Benefits: If we reach this goal, it will save the industry nearly $900,000 in catalogues alone. These challenges are not difficult to meet. They are a baseline and everyone can do them with relative ease. Some may criticize these steps as too easy and not big enough, and while I agree, we have to start somewhere. In future years we will continue to meet these same challenges, but will need to step up to several new and more trying ones. The most important element is that we need to start right now and take decisive action today, because without snow, there will be no snow-sports industry. You can’t rely on others to make these changes. We all need to complete them. And by the way, if each of us meets every challenge that is listed above, then in those four short days we will prevent CO2 equivalent to the volume of 40 Goodyear blimps from heating our precious mountains. What are you waiting for? Today is the day to become green and greener. d Vendors: TRANSPORTATION: Start from the moment you arrive. Bypass those mile-long cab lines and hop on a bus. If a bus just isn’t your thing, then buddy up in a cab. Better yet, you can simply walk (it’s amazing what a brisk stroll outside will do for those hazy-headed mornings in Vegas). The Taxi Cab Challenge: Share at least two cab rides and skip two cabs completely by walking at SIA.08. Green Benefits: These two easy tasks will mean a minimum of 58,500 fewer cab rides by SIA.08 attendees. That prevents 173,000 pounds of CO2 from heating winter any more, and reduces cabdriven miles by 146,000 miles. Greener Benefits: Approximately $668,000 in our collective pocket. 1. Only print enough catalogues for your current account base plus 1 to 2 percent extra for reps and growth. 2. Consider not printing paper order forms. 3. Buy all of your reps memory stick drives and load your catalogue, pricing, terms and order forms on it. Your reps can then load these files onto the retailers’ computer for instant access. CDs are OK, but they are generally used once and then tossed. 4. Offer a small additional discount for retailers who utilize your electronic order forms. 5. Use 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper in your catalogues. FSC (forest stewardship council) paper is another way to go for an eco-friendly option. Better yet, print with soybased inks on 100 percent post-consumer waste that was manufactured by Green-e certified wind power using a chlorine-free process. PAPER: Have any of you ever gone home from the SIA show with less than 20 pounds of new catalogues in your bags? Odds are you went home with more than that. But if 20 pounds is typical, then that means we are collectively taking 390,000 pounds of catalogues back to our offices and stores. A little clarification for you Reps: 1. Encourage your companies and your retailers to use electronic catalogues and order forms. | SIA | T.I.P. | WINTER 2008 | 17
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