Yes, it’s Earth Day! So, happy Earth Day… and “f**king Earth Day…”
See, I love the motivation behind the creation of Earth Day. I love the idea of getting people to think about the planet, the environment, and the resources its provides for us. And, yes, I’m all for the notion of “let’s make every day Earth Day.”
But, as the point person for an environmentally-focused media outlet, I’ve also come to curse Earth Day as my inbox starts to fill up with PR pitches (and those who’ve worked with me at any point over the last 7-8 years can attest to this!). I get it: Earth Day’s an occasion to show potential customers and clients what a company is doing on the environmental front. And if a company is making good efforts in terms of reducing its impact, that is worthy of celebration. Unfortunately, an awful lot of these pitches have more than a whiff of “Oh, no: Earth Day’s coming – what do we do to show that we’re green?” And there are a lot of these pitches: I’ve currently got about 100 in my inbox (and I have deleted quite a few).
Want to get my attention next Earth Day? Send me a press release announcing you’ve made Earth Day a paid holiday for all of your employees. No resources consumed by them getting to work or working, and none used by clients or customers. Show me how you’ve encouraged all stakeholders to take the day to think about their own resource consumption, what it provides for them, and how they might cut back (without necessarily giving much up). That would be worthy of a post…!
The Earth Day Media Pitches: a Random Selection
Nope, I’m not going to share all of the pitches with you – I don’t have that kind of time or motivation. I am going to give you good, bad, and ugly – I’ll (mostly) leave it to you to decide… If you’ve got an Earth Day ad, promotion, or pitch you want to share, do it… in the comments.
- Β indiegogo is featuring the Kill the Cup campaign for Earth Day.
- h.h. gregg is running a 25% sale on energy saving appliance… today only!!
- LEGOLAND Florida is running completely on renewable energy… today only!!
- Dotmar paper is digging into the environmental costs of imported paper, including fires and deforestation.
- Dr. Jane Goodall will make an appearance on Katie today.
- Dirtball is promoting its recycled shorts…
- Savers thrift stores says “Hey, we’re green every day…”
- Realtor.com wants you to take a look at listings with solar panels.
- Cone Communications shares its findings on why Americans don’t recycle more at home.
- This year’s Coachella music festival featured tree-free toilet paper… Ecopreneurist took a closer look at this one.
Image credit: ohdearbarb via photopin cc