Posts tagged Green Practices

Green Adventures: a series in which we invite you into the adventures from our journey.

Green Business Cards

When we started Creation Hope I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.  When your mission calling others to live lives the care for God’s creation, business as usual is often not an option for you.  Whereas another business or ministry has standard ways of doing things and resources, we have to go out of our way to do things in more creation-friendly ways. 

When most organizations need dry erase markers, they simply go to their business supply resource and pick them up.  In contrast, we felt the need to find eco-friendly markers which meant doing a lot of research to track down a better option.

When most organizations need to purify the office air, they buy an air purifier and plug those electric smelly thingies into the outlet.  In contrast, we felt the need to find natural cleansers which ultimately meant tracking down indoor plants that clean toxins from the air in our office.

When most organizations need business cards, they buy them from their normal local or online printer with relative ease and quickness.  In contrast, when we needed business cards we embarked on a huge adventure.

Months ago I began looking into the most creation-friendly way to create our business cards.  What you would think would be a simple, straight-forward task, has resulted in countless hours of research.  I figured that I would simply need to track down what others before me had down and follow in their footsteps.  Unfortunately that was not the case as there weren’t many footsteps to follow.  As it turns out, there are very few options for truly green business cards.

Sure quite a few printers claim to have green business cards, but a more in-depth look reveals that it is mostly greenwashing (making things look greener than they really are).  For example, some printers call their products green when the only eco-friendly thing about it is that it contains 10% recycled materials in the paper.  Others use paper with higher recycled content but still use chemicals to brighten the paper.  Most use ink that is petroleum based and emits VOCs (volatile organic compounds – basically things you don’t want to be breathing in and are bad for the planet).

There are a few exceptions however.  I finally tracked down the companies that I thought offered the best available options.  In fact, I really liked what Greenerprinter had to offer.  They offer 100% recycled paper processed without chlorine, use soy and vegetable inks with no or low VOC’s that are processed chemical free, minimize their waste,  AND they even offset their carbon emissions (a purchased offset results in the reduction of carbon emissions elsewhere; i.e. planting trees).  I have been thoroughly impressed by this company.  I fully expect to purchase some future printing project from them.

Regarding our business cards, several times I priced them out, uploaded my own design, and nearly purchased them.  However, I did not go ahead for a few reasons:

1. Our organization has extremely limited resources.  While the cost was not excessive (as little as $30 for 250 cards, though more expensive as you customize certain items; I think my order was priced out at like $60 for 500), every little bit counts for us.  While not much more than regular business cards, there is definitely a premium that you pay.
2. While great, recycled is not the first option.  Many of you will be familiar with the adage “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.”  There is a hierarchy here.  First we reduce our consumption, then we reuse things vigorously, finally we recycle items.  [Note: putting things is the trash should be a last ditch effort.]  So, I just felt a little bad participating in this same system when there might be other alternatives.
3. I can be a little bit insane at times (my wife certainly agrees).  I have a tendency to be a perfectionist and take things to the extreme on occasion.  Purchasing them from Greenerprinter was an excellent option, the best I had found yet something in me pushed me to take it a step further.

This decision not to move forward with a professional printer left us in uncharted waters.  It was back to the drawing board.  More research.  More scouring the internet for any ideas.  More brainstorming and thinking outside of the box.  If recycled wasn’t the route we wanted to take, where did that leave us?

I was left holding the following competing goals in tension:

1. It had to be done in a way that was respectful of God’s creation.
2. It had to be reasonably priced.  Given our limited resources here, high priced options are not available to us.
3. It had to be professional.  I was willing to give up a degree of professionalism if it was for the sake of gaining creation-friendability (hmmm I kind of like this new word) and uniqueness however.
4. It had to be feasible.  This is perhaps the one I was most willing to give in on.  Odd but true.

I’m sure you are noting two things right now:  First, these are all relative.  Second, the Greenerprinter option pretty much satisfies these.  I know.  I know.  Let me refer you again to my insanity plea in reason #3 above.

Along the way I have considered many options.  The following are some of the more interesting ones:

• Handwritten on scraps of (already used) paper.  Just carry around a pen (preferably an eco-friendly one), find any scrap of paper, and write it out.  Easy enough.  While this achieved goals 1, 2, 4, it did not achieve #3.  It was neither professional nor terribly unique.  Of course, it looks even worse when your handwriting is as bad as mine (above writing is about as good as it gets).  So I had to pass. 
• Printed on leaves.  This certainly achieved goals 1 & 2.  While it didn’t exactly accomplish #3 I was willing to give in here because it would be so stinking cool.  However, feasibility was a big problem.  First, it would be very difficult to get the ink on the leaves cleanly (note the failure to do so in the image above).  Second, it would also be difficult to get the ink to dry well and stay on the leaf.  Thirdly, it’s not exactly realistic to carry a stack of leaf business cards around in your wallet.  Not very durable or portable.  Tempting, but it would have to wait.  Perhaps for a conference sometime.
• Portable custom stamp inked onto any available object.  This sounded so cool.  Have a custom, self-inking stamp made that you would take everywhere and stamp it on whatever was handy.  Possible targets would include:  notebooks, hands, newspapers, books, trash, clothing, etc.  The possibilities are endless and so much fun to think about.  This would achieve goal #1.  Again, I was willing to give in on #3 because of the uniqueness.  Unfortunately, because of the size of business cards and the fact that the stamp would be custom the cost was quite high (if you could even find them that big 2 x 3 1/2).  Also, it is not too practical to carry a big old stamp around everywhere.  Sadly, this too would not work.

I went on for weeks and weeks, comparing different options to see if they met my criteria.  Some came close.  Most didn’t.  In the end I have developed a two-pronged strategy.

Strategy 1:  Digital business cards

The first part of my strategy opts out of the traditional business card approach.  I have created both a vCard and a jpeg image of my business card.  Both are now stored on my phone.  When needing to share contact info, I can quickly text or email one of my digital business cards.  No paper.  No printing.  No shipping.  No wasted inventory.  No bulky items to carry around.  No waste from data being entered into Outlook and then having the card tossed into the trash.

It seems that this option achieves all four of my goals.  While not the most professional route, I think it works.  For the most part it is a practical solution that gets the job done.  At the same time it does not allow the recipient the opportunity to quickly grab a card and disappear.  Nor can you write a note on the back (though this could be included in the email).  But in the end, I think this is a great option.

Strategy 2:  DIY business cards on trash with vegetable ink

The second part of my strategy puts a major twist on the traditional approach.  I have opted to reuse instead of recycle (or use new paper).  I am collecting would-be trash or recycling and cutting it into 2 1/4 x 3 1/2 business cards.   The packaging from that Tinker Bell underwear we bought my potty-training daughter, from that Prius brochure, from that cereal box, from a friend’s Cheez-It’s box, from the Drumsticks that our youth group consumed, and other items are now re-purposed as Creation Hope business cards.  We have eliminated the collection, shipping, cleaning, recycling, and other related efforts and emissions.  Not only is this a good way to conserve resources, but it is unique and eye-catching.

The rest  has not been easy.  Figuring out how to get the information onto these cards has been quite the challenge. After much research I purchased a custom rubber stamp mounted on wood from RubberStamps.net for a mere $20.  [Note the stamp was well made and arrived just 4 days after I ordered it; that’s with the cheapest, slowest shipping.]  The end result is certainly not as clean looking as something printed from a professional printer but I have been willing to sacrifice for the bigger goal here.

Now, by far the hardest part has been the inking process.  I have searched and searched trying to find soy or vegetable ink stamp pads to no avail.  This has been so frustrating.  You would think there would be an eco-friendly stamp pad option.  But it seems they don’t exist (if you know otherwise please let me know). 

Here is where my wife really thinks that I have lost it.  Instead of settling for regular stamp pads at this point, I (foolishly?) chose to attempt to make my own vegetable based ink as opposed to using a petroleum-based, VOC emitting stamp pad.  Again, I had an impossible time finding instructions on how to do this.  You would think that among the countless how-to websites that help you do everything from fixing a computer to building a chicken coop to constructing a hydroponic garden in your window you could find instructions on how to do this.  In all of my looking, I only found 1 set of instructions.

So, I gathered up my ingredients: vegetable oil, granular soy lecithin, Kool Aid, and water.  I mixed them up, put them in a container with a paper towel as my stamp pad, and began stamping away.  Now, here is the part I wish I didn’t have to write.  I am two ink batches in but have not yet produced an ink that works well.  It seems to be a little too watery still and thus does not stamp crisply and cleanly onto the business card as you can see below.

I will have to continue researching and refining the ink.  In the meantime I have borrowed a regular stamp pad and done a few tests to see how it looks (see below).  If I want to justify this aspect, the ink pad is refillable (though the 2 ounce bottles come with waste of their own). But perhaps that is a stretch.

This strategy also achieves the various goals, though to differing degrees.  It most certainly achieves goals 1 & 2.  It is fairly professional, though it definitely lacks the quality a professionally printed card would have.  But, what it lacks there, it gains in terms of uniqueness.  The place this is most wanting is in terms of feasibility.  The problem is neither the card nor the stamps, it is in the ink itself.  When it’s all said and done, I am very pleased with our results.  They are created in a way that cares for creation, they are very affordable, they are fairly professional and totally unique, and they are mostly feasible.

I will continue refining my business cards, but for now I am quite satisfied and excited about how this strategy helps us to care for creation and achieve our mission.

What do you think?  Do you like this approach?  Did we succeed in our goals?  Am I totally insane?  Finally, do you have any suggestions to help us improve?  I would love to hear your ideas.

Also consider:

Green Adventures: Baking Bread

Meatless Monday

*Custom stamp image from

http://orders.rubberstamps.net/FixedSize.aspx?ProductID=4927&qty=1