Companies need to stop giving corporate swag that people just throw in the trash

Todd Hirsch is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail. He is Calgary-based economist, author and public speaker. He is also the director of the Energy Transition Centre.

All of these freebies are creating a strain on our landfills, with some of them ending up in rivers, lakes and oceans. The irony is that most of the companies doling out swag would claim to be committed to the environment. But the millions of pounds of garbage they’re handing out never gets mentioned in their ESG reporting.

But it’s not a stretch of anyone’s imagination that most – if not all – of the marketing swag we collect at conferences and trade shows ends up in the landfill. If that’s the destination for 40 per cent of Christmas gifts – presumably bought with intention and of higher value than corporate swag – then surely the figure for swag is higher. Almost all of it is cheap, useless and unnecessary.

The second part of the solution is to offer creative alternatives to the cheap plastic and foam items, such as biodegradable or compostable items that have a more defined lifespan, and won’t end up clogging a landfill or ocean. Options here include items made of plant fibre, corn starch, recycled paper or polylactic acid . The obvious downside is that these items often cost more.

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