martin - come to a boston PUG meeting with me one month and i'll introduce you to anne ruthmann - she's fantastic and one of the first ones to really go green on our coast in terms of wedding photography. also check out the green boston wedding site
My sister is a big time greenpeace hippe and tried to get me to ditch canon and go to Nikon because canon won't pressure Japan to stop hunting whales. So does that exclude all canon togs from being green? Or would my 18mpg jeep liberty exclude me?
I guess, what is the definition of "green" are you using? Traditionally its about reducing the carbon footprint and using less renewable resources, so while hunting whales may be not ethically or morally sound for some people, that might not necessarily fit the "green" definition.
Where I live, you can opt your electricity to be only produced by wind energy. Fatcow.com is also powered by wind energy. Consumables, like marketing material (business cards, brochures, direct mail) can be printed by greenerprinter.com, an eco-friendly company.
My fellow graphic designer started this website on working substainably...it's geared towards the graphic design industry, but there might be some general business practices you could check out.
There are many different shades of green. We do what we can, where we can like using recycled paper for printed correspondence, using and album company that uses recycled or renewable products in their packing and shipping materials. Our recycle bin is three times our trash bin.
As far as materials used for products. If a product is going to be used as a lifetime keepsake, it is not a product necessarily harmful to the environment. Pictures for display or a wedding album are not use and discard products so we use the best materials we can for those but ensure the packaging is recycled or renewable products.
BarnDog wrote:
There are many different shades of green. We do what we can, where we can like using recycled paper for printed correspondence, using and album company that uses recycled or renewable products in their packing and shipping materials. Our recycle bin is three times our trash bin.
As far as materials used for products. If a product is going to be used as a lifetime keepsake, it is not a product necessarily harmful to the environment. Pictures for display or a wedding album are not use and discard products so we use the best materials we can for those but ensure the packaging is recycled or renewable products.
That's a really great response. We don't want to use "green" products (That they will eventually realize are not as green as originally thought) at the expense of having those products fall apart. Our goal is to use products that last a lifetime.
For equipment, you could use lead-free glass. A lot of the older camera lenses use lead, the newer ones do not.
For wedding albums, are green ones really going to fall apart earlier than the others? I don't think it's the harmfulness to the environment that is the biggest problem, but rather the source of the paper itself. The green albums use recycled paper versus a clearcut forest or whatever.
I've got a wedding on the 10th of Dec where none of the products can be made out of leather, that counts out my proof albums, DVD cases and most of my storybook album options. Severe vegetarianism from the mother of the bride who is booking me, I hope to heck the bride herself who the mother tells me is not vegy gets a word in edgeways on this but I have to follow the wishes of the paying party. Not 'green' but in a similar vein...
Beni wrote:
I've got a wedding on the 10th of Dec where none of the products can be made out of leather, that counts out my proof albums, DVD cases and most of my storybook album options. Severe vegetarianism from the mother of the bride who is booking me, I hope to heck the bride herself who the mother tells me is not vegy gets a word in edgeways on this but I have to follow the wishes of the paying party. Not 'green' but in a similar vein...
Just watch out for leather shoes and straps, or beware of her vegan wrath.
BarnDog wrote:
There are many different shades of green. We do what we can, where we can like using recycled paper for printed correspondence, using and album company that uses recycled or renewable products in their packing and shipping materials. Our recycle bin is three times our trash bin.
As far as materials used for products. If a product is going to be used as a lifetime keepsake, it is not a product necessarily harmful to the environment. Pictures for display or a wedding album are not use and discard products so we use the best materials we can for those but ensure the packaging is recycled or renewable products.
Couple points: green photog was shown in Rangefinder several months ago. He rides a bike to weddings, etc. Sells himself as green photographer. If you calculate your carbon footprint accurately, you could buy offsets from a good offset company and be "100 percent green".
Side note: CFL bulbs do contain mercury. This is easily recaptured when disposed of correctly. More so, if you pulverize the bulb entirely you let out ~12 times less mercury than that produced in electricity generation for the incandescents in the same time/usage.
