Are Biodegradable Promotional Products Worth the Cost?

When you're looking for products to use as promotional items – special deal add-ons, convention door prizes, swag bags, and the like – you have a lot of decisions to make. One of those decisions is how far you want to swing towards ethical, sustainable, and green products.

On the Ethix blog, we spend a lot of time talking about different kinds of ethical products, whether it's giving you product ideas, teaching you how to verify eco-friendly certifications, or just explaining industry terms.

Underlying almost all of our content is one base assumption: it's better to opt for eco-friendly and sustainable products than not.

But, however strongly we feel that to be the case, it's worth analyzing. After all, maybe you aren't convinced.

To do that, we have to confront one of the most pressing challenges you face when you're looking into eco-friendly products: the cost. When 250 shirts from China cost you $4 per shirt, but union-made, eco-friendly shirts from local USA-based producers run you $12 each, you start to wonder: is it worth the price?

We believe the answer is yes, but if you aren't convinced, let's talk about it.

What Makes a Product Biodegradable?

To discuss biodegradable products, we first have to define what they are. Technically speaking, everything is biodegradable on a long enough scale. It's just that sometimes those time scales stretch into the thousands or millions of years.

The specific definition of biodegradable products is products made of components that can be broken down by naturally occurring processes, generally microorganisms like bacteria and fungi. When broken down, they're reduced to component parts and byproducts that are found in nature and are thus not harmful to the environment.

Think about plastics. Typical plastics last for a very, very long time. They do break down eventually, but with a caveat: most of their breaking down is more mechanical than biological. They break apart into smaller and smaller pieces, but those pieces are still plastic. Microplastics are the result of this process; microscopic pieces of plastic that have saturated every corner of the world.

Biodegradable products do still generally take time to degrade, though it depends on the material. Some can break down in a matter of days or weeks in the right conditions. Others can still take hundreds of years. Technically speaking, plastics are still biodegradable, but so slowly that they may as well not be in most conditions.

One of the biggest roadblocks to biodegradable products is that there's no set definition or standard for what biodegradable means. A company could identify that their product will biodegrade in 250 years and still call it biodegradable.

What about compostable materials?

A common issue with this discussion is the idea of compostable materials. Compostable materials also break down under natural processes, but they're generally materials that break down directly into water, CO2, and compost, which is organic material similar to soil. It can be used as a great source of nutrients for gardens and plant life.

Essentially, compostable is a form of biodegradable that happens much more rapidly, though it may need controlled conditions for it to work. Also, unlike biodegradable, the term compostable has at least one certification from a regulatory agency, the Spanish Association for Standards and Certification. Their definition, standard EN-13432, requires that a product must biodegrade at least 90% of its total mass in less than six months to be called compostable.

To round things out, consider that a bag made of cotton is biodegradable. A bag made of plastic is also biodegradable, but on such a long time scale that it's disingenuous to call it such. And, a bag made of paper could biodegrade in a matter of weeks and would be considered compostable.

What Are the Benefits of Biodegradable Promotional Products?

The overall goal of using biodegradable products is to have a circular, renewable existence with the world around us. Instead of extracting crude oil, turning it into plastic, and leaving that plastic to harm wildlife and poison the environment for centuries, we instead use materials that break down within our lifetimes, turning back into nutrients to nourish plants and animals around us.

Conceptually, this is obviously better, but what about on a tangible level? Many people, after all, are short-sighted or simply don't worry about problems left for future generations, assuming that technology will improve and solutions will be found regardless.

Fortunately, there are a lot of tangible benefits to using biodegradable materials for your promotional products.

It reduces landfill use. Landfills are generally a huge use of space, and since the waste accumulated in them is often highly toxic, they render the land unusable for any other purpose. Moreover, despite designs to keep that waste contained, toxic runoff can pollute water and land all around them, not to mention the air itself. And that's for well-designed and well-managed landfills, which is not what most landfills actually are.

It helps reduce carbon emissions. Biodegradable materials generally produce less carbon than petrochemicals, and when they degrade, they can fuel plant growth that can help sequester more carbon from the atmosphere. This helps promote circularity, as well as reducing the overall impact you have on the climate.

They break down safely. Biodegradable materials break down into natural elements that are already found all around the world. The ingredients and byproducts are not toxic; in fact, they can often become nourishment for life in the area. This makes them safer for people, for animals, and for the environment.

With benefits like these, many people are already convinced. But what about those of you who are more profit-driven, with a short-term vision and goals?

It's a difficult argument to make, after all. "If you spend 3x the price now, then your grandchildren won't suffer as much" isn't a useful cost-benefit analysis for a lot of people.

From a more immediate business standpoint, there are also some key benefits.

• You can meet environmental regulations. An increasing number of countries are levying regulations on product use, environmental impact, and related attributes of running a business. Using biodegradable materials for your promotional products helps you meet or exceed those goals.
• You can gain marketing benefits. A significant portion of the population is concerned about the environment and will angle their shopping towards brands that take steps to be better for the climate. You'll potentially sell more products when your promotional items are more eco-friendly.
• You can gain investors and partners. There are many organizations that will partner with, help fund, or otherwise work with businesses, contingent on those businesses investing in green strategies. Sometimes, it's grants, sometimes it's tangible support like what Fairtrade does with farmers, and sometimes it's somewhere in between. It can result in tangible financial support.
• You can support other green businesses. The producer of the biodegradable promotional items you work with will use the profits from your purchases to grow their own business, which helps bring production up, develop new and better materials, and bring down the costs for everyone. It's sort of like crowdsourcing innovation through commerce.

Yes, it's a higher up-front cost, but the results are generally worthwhile, both financially and ethically.

Are There Drawbacks to Biodegradable Promotional Products?

Certainly. Let's analyze the biggest drawbacks.

The cost of biodegradable materials

The big one, and the impetus for this entire article, is the cost. Biodegradable materials are generally more expensive than their non-biodegradable counterparts.

That cost isn't necessarily inherent in the materials and products, though. Sure, sometimes the biodegradable material requires a stricter, slower, and less efficient process to create, compared to the rapid-fire molding of plastic or what have you. Sometimes, it's simply because there's only one facility making biodegradable products, compared to hundreds of facilities churning out the worse items. And, of course, sometimes it's because the biodegradable product is still a relatively new material and is still being developed.

From an immediate business perspective, a higher cost for biodegradable products means the results you get from those products must be better. Merchandising and promotional items can play a significant role in marketing, and they can bring plenty of returns, but you have to know what you're measuring and how to evaluate the results.

The throw-away mindset

Another problem is that, to many people, "biodegradable" is a term that has a kind of magic to it. They think that an item that is biodegradable will break down regardless of how it is handled or treated. They're more likely to simply discard biodegradable products.

The reality is that many biodegradable products are still very slow to break down when they're treated as any other refuse. They break down the best when they are put under specific conditions (light, heat, humidity, bacteria, and so on), and without all of those elements, they linger.

This means that the best way to handle biodegradable materials is through what is, effectively, recycling facilities for them. Simply discarding them isn't the best option. But people don't often know that, so they don't actually bring as many benefits as they could.

This isn't always a drawback, though. Some biodegradable materials are made so that even the conditions of your typical landfill – or just being thrown into a ditch – will still result in sufficient degradation to fit the bill. Most, though, don't.

No standardization

Another issue is one we've already touched on: there's no standardization or globally-accepted definition for what is and isn't biodegradable. Some biodegradable products still take decades or centuries to fully break down. This is especially true of "green plastic" or bioplastics, which are chemically identical to plastics but are made using cellulose from plants rather than petroleum.

This is something that can change as more and more countries get on board with green initiatives, but until that comes to pass, it's a challenge. You need to review what your "biodegradable" products are actually made of and what time scales and requirements are involved in breaking them down.

In other words, it's one of the biggest areas where greenwashing runs rampant.

Are Biodegradable Promotional Products Worth the Cost?

Now, let's return to our original question: is using biodegradable products for your promotional items worth the cost?

Our opinion is yes, but if and only if you do it right. Some biodegradable products are much better than others, after all. And, at the end of the day, you still can end up wiping out a lot of the benefits of biodegradable products if you're ordering them from China and having them shipped overseas.

There are three good ways to look at biodegradable products from a business standpoint.

• The pure cost-benefit and return on investment calculation. Biodegradable products are more expensive, so you need to make up the difference through marketing or other benefits, like grants, partnerships, or higher prices. Balancing this is critical, and the math doesn't always work out, but it can usually be made at least positive.
• The short-term conceptual benefit. By assigning value to conceptual benefits like climate activism and sustainability, you can step further away from the pure numbers-oriented perspective and accept that sometimes being a positive impact on the world around you means spending a bit more up-front.
• The long-term conceptual benefit. Doing good for the world, even if it's good that only manifests after we're long gone, is still doing good. We all have a part to play in keeping our world turning, and even if our individual impact is low, it's worth the cost to reinforce our contribution to society and the world.

We do believe that biodegradable products are worth buying and investing in, but you need to use caution and make sure you aren't falling victim to greenwashing. It's trickier than it might seem sometimes.

Fortunately, biodegradable products are just one small segment of eco-friendly and sustainable products, and you don't always need to rely solely on them. Often, there are more sustainable or circular alternatives that aren't technically biodegradable but are more readily recyclable, zero-waste, or sustainable in other ways.

We're not here to tell you that any one particular green effort is bad; taking any step, however small, is a benefit over what you were doing before. If we all take those steps, together, we can change the world.