Comments on: Is Your Agency Even A Little Green?

By: Floyd Hayes

Floyd Hayes — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:05:23 +0000

Nothing to do with being green, I just wanted to get rid of my beer tits:

Williamsburg to SoHo over the W/burg bridge in speedy up format.

By: Follow-Up: Is Your Agency Even A Little Green? « Agency Spy

Follow-Up: Is Your Agency Even A Little Green? « Agency Spy — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:36:45 +0000

[...] work day.” The video, complete with soundtrack, shows their small push for green living. We asked you guys if your agency was even a little green. The good: “I work for an office of JWT and [...]

By: blogman

blogman — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:00:10 +0000

As part of C-E’s new “green” initiative, they distributed 32-ounce plastic water bottles to all their employees, and asked them to fill them regularly using new filtered-water units installed on every floor — rather than purchasing bottled water from Costco or the like. A nice idea and gesture, indeed. The ironic part? The new green plastic bottles aren’t recyclable.

By: Brent

Brent — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 04:04:27 +0000

The last agency I worked for ONLY stocked the kitchen with white styrofoam cups. Being the semi-granola, big-mouthed fool that I am prompted me to send an email inquiring about a possible switch over to re-usable cups, or in the least, replacing the cup stash with plastic dixie cups in an effort to cut down on our carbon “footprint.” Mind you this was week 2 of working at this agency. Boy was that a nightmare… I almost instantly received emails left and right from all dept.’s warning me of the ramifications of the email I had just sent out, something regarding the president of the company “having a thing about his cups.”
That was the most specific response I received until a few days later the president decided to do a “reply all” (hitting the entire agency) with the quip, “hasn’t someone told the new guy about my cups?”

Later it turned out he had some unworked out OCD issues, one of which being that he could only drink from styrofoam cups, and therefore felt it necessary to make it an “unwritten company policy” that the cups were to be used if you did not provide your own. My guess was so that he didn’t feel like some sort of “special case” if he showed up to a meeting being the only one sporting his styrofoam cup of water + styrofoam cup of coffee (he was also unable to have one without the other… yet another trait I would later learn).

That should have been a red-flag right off the bat, but I was too busy trying to brainstorm with the rest of our team about how to promote one of our clients as being a “Green, Eco-Friendly Home Builder.”

By: bythe bay

bythe bay — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:50:35 +0000

I work at Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners. Maybe it’s our bay front location in Sausalito, or our proximity to great hiking and surfing, but we are pretty green. We all have recycling bins at our desk and even the media department tries to be as green as possible with limiting the number of mags on our comp lists. The unwanted mags we do get are donated to medical center or woman’s shelters.

By: Frymaster

Frymaster — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:56:10 +0000

Omar — F’in classic. I’m with Steffan. Hang a medal on that one!

Stephanie is sooooo right. At one client of mine, an ad services agency, one particular employee who was a true believer worked for several months to develop the pick up procedure for company – and the massive, multi-building corporate park didn’t make it easy. Then, getting the people in the company to follow the rules for what can go in which bin was its own separate war that made everybody in the company hate her.

But she succeeded. In the recycling thing, that is, not at the company. Which is not to say that the recycling thing got her fired – she did plenty to help make that happen.

Bottom-line: this company is, and always will be, a strong recycler.

By: Russell Hollenbeck

Russell Hollenbeck — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 23:02:45 +0000

Advertising Agencies are best equipped to change and challenge human behaivor. And greenwashing can be good as hypocrisy is the first step towards real change. And a company that makes the claim will eventually become accountable and will inwardly make those changes.

Those companies that embrace a model of sustainabilty will be in better shape than those who are forced to conform later.

By: steffan postaer

steffan postaer — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 15:24:11 +0000

Cynical as it is, Omar’s bit about recycling ads from old annuals deserves a Webby. On a serious note, our office still uses foam cups for coffee. Not good. SP

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 02:43:29 +0000

Another poster said their agency doesn’t recycle because it “doesn’t make sense.” So many companies have this unfortunate philosophy. I think the missing element is having properly motivated people within the company.

Employees at the agency I work for – Spunlogic – assembled a “Green” committee mid-last year (aptly named “Greenlogic”). Prior to this group, nothing about the agency was green. There is now recycled printer paper, bins for recycling paper, the entire office is using compact fluorescent bulbs, a proposal for structured telecommuting was turned in and test group for the plan has been identified. And, because the building doesn’t support plastic and aluminum recycling, they took it upon themselves to order those bins and the employees themselves take them to local recycling centers.

So, I guess my point is: to be successful at being Green, you have to care about the movement for more than just the PR.

By: Stacy

Stacy — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 02:35:54 +0000

Yeah, my agency is green… with envy, that every other agency is managing to get new business while we keep losing it.