Who needs paper phone books anymore?

I read Ideal Bite's tips for many years and I always find there interesting green information, ideas and recommendations. Yesterday's tip was about an issue that relates almost to anyone - phone books.

Is there really a need for a paper phonebook on the digital age when we get so much info in one click? personally I think we don't need paper phone books anymore. Certainly we don't need to receive a new one every year. Do you know anyone who still use phone books?

The benefits of phone books are marginal if any. If you're looking for a phone number, you can find it very easily on websites such as AnyWho, PhoneNumber.com and White Pages, or even the Google SMS service from your mobile phone.

And what about the costs?

Publish Post

Well, the costs are significant. According to Ideal Bite about 540 million unsolicited phone books arrive at American doors annually. What does it mean in terms of trees? according to Ted.me the average weight of the a phone directory is 3.62 pounds, so if we use the equation of 1 metric ton of paper = 20 trees (which we use here for the book industry), we get this number: 17,740,000 trees. Yes, almost 18 million trees are cut down every year to produce these chubby unnecessary phone books.

Even more frustrating is the fact that so many of them end in landfills instead of the recycling bins. According to Ideal Bite, phone books make for about 660,000 tons of trash every year!

So what can you about it? how can we stop receiving phone books we don't need and don't use? Ideal Bite's tip is to use YellowPagesGoesGreen.org - it's a movement against unsolicited phone book delivery (both Yellow and White Pages books), where you can sign up to remove your home or office from receiving the telephone directories.

You're also welcome to visit YellowPagesGoesGreen.org to get more information about this phenomenon and find out why you keep getting these books every year (hint: someone is making money out of it..) and how many of them are recycled (less than 10%!). So check it out and spread the word about this option to stop receiving phone books year after year.

The bottom line is that it's all about the money - Ted.me reports that the directory industry worth to the telephone companies in the United States $13.58 billion! The power of the industry and the money it makes is based mainly on its wide circulation - if many people will ask not to receive these phone books anymore, phonebooks won't be that attractive and eventually advertisers will look for other routes to put their money into (maybe the websites that provide the same service without cutting any trees..).

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Special offer on Aaspirations Publishing's website

Earlier this month we announced on our collaboration with Aaspriations Publishing of Toronto, Canada, where a tree is planted with Eco-Libris for every copy of their new titles. Now they also have a special holidays offer for our stickers on their website.

You can order our stickers from Aaspirations Publications' website, or simply add it on to your order of books. For every sticker bought, one tree will be planted with our planting partners. And that's not all! You will receive a $2 cash coupon on every purchase of more than 2 stickers.

Offer ends November 30th, so you've got 9 more days to check it out.

Happy green holidays!
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Plant a tree for every book you read!

Green Options: 9 Ways To Eliminate Direct Mail Waste

As part of Eco-Libris' ongoing content partnership with Green Options Media, we feature a post that was originally published by Jennifer Kaplan on November 17 on Ecopreneurist. Today's post brings you some great ideas how to eliminate your direct mail waste, which is especially important this time of the year.

Are you ready for the holiday mail season? Maybe this is the year to trim your DM waste. The fundamental problem is that direct mail marketing is inherently inefficient. 44% of all direct mail is thrown in the trash without ever being opened and that which is opened only yields an average of a 2.77% response. So, if you want to get 1,000 customers to respond to your direct mail piece, you have to mail, on average, 36,101 pieces of mail. Multiply that by millions of customers and millions of companies and you can see the problem. The good news is that a March 2008 Aberdeen Group study found that direct mail waste reduction is an area where "environmental concerns and shareholder interests coincide." But, you may already know this. They also found that 40% of companies said direct mail waste reduction was one of the top two areas being focused on for improving eco-friendly business practices.

The goal is to achieve the greatest precision with the lowest number of pieces mailed, but there a lot of other benefits. You can save money and enhance customer satisfaction which will in turn improves customer loyalty, purchase behavior and profitability. Here's 9 ways:

#1: Maintain good list hygiene. Updating your mailing list to remove unwanted, duplicate and undeliverable addresses regularly and thoroughly is a cheap, quick and effective way to reduce waste. There are several ways to verify mailing lists and all outside list mangers are able to perform this function or you can buy your own address verification software. You will mail fewer pieces and, under some circumstances, lower your mailing rates. Consider offering incentives (such as the offer of a discount on their next purchase) for notification of duplicate mailings and incorrect addresses.

How to green up your book's printing? check out this eco-kit

Many times it's easier to know what not to do than what to do. If you're a publisher or an author that is trying to go green, you probably know what I'm talking about.

We know that doing the right thing can be a little complexed when it comes to printing, and we try to provide on our website and blog as many helpful resources as possible. Today we're happy to present you with an eco-kit.

This eco-kit (available in a PDF format) is found on the website of one of our most favorite green organizations - Markets Initiative. It's a "compendium of tips, terms, resources and papers for environmentally friendly publishing" and was prepared by the Association of Book Publishers of British Colombia.

Why it was initiated in the first place? You can find the reason on the introduction as follows:

"Premiums on environmentally friendly paper have been reduced as a result of the increased used of ancient forest free papers and the quality of the papers are virtually indistinguishable from traditional book papers. However, sorting through the various terms used to describe papers and their recycled content can still be daunting. Making informed choices about other environmental considerations such as chlorine treatment or inking can be overwhelming. And finding out exactly what papers are available and working effectively with print professionals is essential. Hence the need for this EcoKit."

This guide is from 2006 and may not include all the information you need, but it's definitely a good resource with regards to printing terms (what's Elemental Chlorine Free?), work with printers and how to make sure your readers will know about your green choices. It also includes a detailed list of eco-friendly papers and links to more important resources.

You can find this eco-kit on this link: http://www.marketsinitiative.org/uploads/book-ecokit_for_web_en.pdf

And by the way, there's an eco-kit for printing magazines a well - http://www.marketsinitiative.org/uploads/ecokit-magazine.pdf

For more resources, please check our resources page - http://www.ecolibris.net/greenresources.asp

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Plant a tree for every book you read!

Monday's green books series: 'Strategies for the Green Economy' by Joel Makower

I love to read good books about green business and when it's a book written by one of the people whom I consider to be one of my "green biz" teachers, it is a real delight!

Our book today on Monday's green books series is:

Strategies for the Green Economy: Opportunities and Challenges in the New World of Business by Joel Makower and Cara Pike

In the last couple of years I have read Joel Makower's blog Two Steps Forward on regular basis and it became one of my best resources to learn and better understand the green economy. I see in Joel one of the best teachers I had (and still have) in the complex world of green economy and therefore I was very excited to hear about his new book. And I wasn't wrong.

For those of you who haven't had the chance yet to read or hear Joel, here's a very short version of his impressive bio (from the book's cover): Joel Makower is executive editor of GreenBiz.com and other Web sites, research and events produced by Greener World Media, Inc., of which he is cofounder and chairman. He has 20 years' experience advising companies on green strategy and marketing and is author of more than a dozen books, including The green consumer and The E-factor: The Bottom-Line Approach to Environmentally Responsible Business.

You can already guess that this book, which is providing a road map to the green marketplace, is written from a very unique point of view of someone who has been both following and participating in the evolvement of the green economy in the last two decades.

This unique perspective is differentiating this book from other green biz books and makes it very valuable for anyone who is interested in green business and especially to those who want to better understand what's the green noise is all about.

The book is focusing both on the consumer and the companies sides. It presents the green market from the consumer perspective and tries to make some logic in all the information we're constantly fed with about the green consumers - from the surveys we hear about all the time about the green preferences of consumers to the many definitions of green market (LOHAS, greenback greens, cultural creatives, etc.).

You'll also find here an analysis of one of the questions I find most intriguing - why there's so much difference between what we learn from the surveys and market reserach companies (almost everyone is going green) and the reality (green products and services are still a relatively small niche)?

On the companies' side, the book follows the development in the understanding of businesses the concept of going green, from something you do to support the environment to something you do to support your brand and your bottom line. It has many stories and examples from both Fortune 500 companies and start-ups on their green experience and attempts to implement green strategies.

What I like about the book is that it gives you the whole picture of both failures and successes, trying to portray things in a realistic tone that is sometimes missing in other books. 'Strategies for the Green Economy' doesn't have all the answers and leaves you with some questions that only time might gives you the answers on, like "how green is good enough"?, but it gives you plenty of information and tools (including the Ecological Roadmap of Cara Pike that is brought at the end of the book and includes valuable data on people's environmental values) to figure out what green business is all about.

Title: Strategies for the Green Economy: Opportunities and Challenges in the New World of Business

Authors: Joel Makower and Cara Pike

Publisher: McGraw-Hill

Published: September 2008

Pages: 312

This book is not only green in content but also in the way it was produced - it is printed on 100% post-consumer, de-inked fiber, without chlorine.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Plant a tree for every book you read!

What happens to my recycled paper?

What happens to the paper we recycle after we put it in the recycle bin and it's been collected? and what happens to plastic, metal, glass and other materials we recycle? If you're curious as I am to find out what happens to them, RecycleBank provides you with the answers. And not just regular answers, but animated ones!

RecycleBank is a rewards program that motivates people to recycle by quickly and easily measuring the amount of material each home recycles and then converting that activity into RecycleBank. Points that can be used at hundreds of local and national rewards partners. It is one of our favorite green companies and a great example how innovation and environment can go hand in hand to generate value (see links below). Hence I was very happy to hear from them about this new video, as follows:

Just in time for “America Recycles Day” (which was yesterday btw), RecycleBank launched The Cycle, an interactive animation to help answer the question: “What happens to my recyclables after I put them out and they are collected?”

The video takes viewers through each step in the cycle: from recycling collection to processing to manufacturing new products from recycled material. Here is the link to the website: www.explorethecycle.com

And here's the part of the video explaining about the process the paper goes through:

More links related to RecycleBank:

'My Green Bookshelf' with Ron Gonen, RecycleBank's co-founder and CEO

RecycleBank video in Davos

Recycling Rocks in Philly!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net

Reminder: sign up to Eco-Libris newsletter and you can win a copy of 'Relocating Mia'

Our November newsletter is planned to be sent next Wednesday so this is a good time to remind you of a great offer we have for new subscribers: sign up this month to our newsletter and you can win a copy of Rebecca Lerwill's book "Relocating Mia".

Eco-Libris' newsletter is a monthly newsletter, so you can expect to hear from us only once a month. On the newsletter we will offer you updates about our work and our latest collaborations in the book industry. We also include articles on the book and paper industry from our unique green perspective, as well as special offers and discounts!

And as mentioned above, if you sign up until November 30, you will have the chance of winning a copy of "Relocating Mia" by Rebecca Lerwill.

All you have to do is just to sign up, using the box on the right side of the page saying 'Join Our Email List' and that's it. We will have a raffle between the new subscribers on December 1st and will post here the name of the winner. And of course, a tree will be planted for this copy as well!

Thank you to the author Rebecca Lerwill for the copy! We collaborate with Rebecca, who is balancing out every copy sold through her website by planting a tree with Eco-Libris. Every buyer also receives our sticker ("One tree planted for this book") with their copy. By the way - with every purchase, you will receive not only the book and a tree that will be planted on your behalf, but also I home made beautiful book mark!

What this book is about? here's a short description from its website:

"Relocating Mia is a highly entertaining adventure full of romance and suspense which will be loved by readers who appreciate the drama of international crime, the gut - churning twists and turns of well woven intrigue, and the heart - warming effect of a great love story."

Mia Trentino is the top relocating specialist at Worldmove, Inc., and her latest assignment is sending her to Siberia, Russia. But the new job comes with a new partner: a handsome threat to her career named Douglas Farland.

After a rocky start, the job is going well, and things begin to heat up between Mia and Douglas. Then, lies and secrets begin to surface that make Mia suspect her new partner might have a different agenda. What seemed like a simple relocation erupts into a cat-and-mouse game of intrigue full of drug smuggling, secret agents, and the Red Mafia. Suddenly Mia's in a fight for her life, and she may have to trust the one person who seems the most to blame.

We're not the only ones who think it's a great book - "Relocating Mia" is an award winning romantic suspense, honored by the USA Book News awards, the Indie Excellence awards, and the Sabrina Book awards. Also, The Acronym, the sequel to Relocating Mia, is with the publisher and will come out early 2009.

So what are you waiting for?

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris

www.ecolibris.net