How to create a better office environment with furniture, supplies, and products

October is breast cancer awareness month and that’s undoubtedly important. Office workers can make a difference – actually quite a large difference using combined efforts. This month we’ll look at some actions your office can take.

That said I wanted to discuss a major issue before you go buying pink ipods and snack yogurt as a means of supporting the cause.

The question… should you buy pink office or other products to support the cause? Breast Cancer Action has a Think Before You Pink campaign each year that says maybe but maybe not.

Breast Cancer Action is an organization dedicated to actually making a difference to the breast cancer cure cause. They point out some interesting facts that you should be aware of before you buy a pink item.

The issue is that many companies around this time of year jump on the pink band-wagon yet actually give very little to the actual breast cancer cause. Some problems with companies that do this:

• They don’t give funds gained sufficiently to the cure; they’re simply using breast cancer as their personal marketing scheme.
• They have ultra low caps on the amount they’ll donate. For example, “Cartier sold a “pink ribbon” watch for $3900, but capped its donation at $30,000 – after the company had sold 10 watches, consumers were no longer contributing to breast cancer causes.”
• Some are Pinkwashers; or in TBYP’s words, “A person or company that purports to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink ribbon campaign, but manufacture products that are linked to the disease.” It would honestly be better if companies quit making the toxic and harmful products than donating money to ‘find’ a cure.

According to Breast Cancer Action here are some questions you may want to ask yourself before supporting a pink ribbon campaign:

• “How much money from your purchase actually goes to the cause?
• What is the maximum amount that will be donated?
• How much money was spent marketing the product?
• How are the funds being raised?
• To what breast cancer organization does the money go, and what types of programs does it support?
• What is the company doing to assure that its products are not contributing to the breast cancer epidemic?”

Visit Breast Cancer Action to learn more. And don’t worry your office can help support breast cancer this month in spite of the shifty companies that are trying to milk it. There are some pink office supplies that are a good deal and some actions your office can take as a group.

All of that soon to come this month so stay tuned.