The Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens was marketing itself as the Green Heart of Pittsburgh. Yet it was hanging up vinyl banners to tout its shows, and that bothered the staff.

"A lot of vinyls are processed with chemicals that you don't necessarily want to put into a landfill," said Michael Sexauer, director of marketing and communications at Phipps. This spring, visitors will be greeted with new fabric banners proclaiming the latest events at the Oakland institution.

More often these days, organizations are deciding it's not enough to sell environmentally friendly products or get employees to throw scrap paper in recycling bins. A company's actual marketing plan and the materials used to deliver the brand message have to pass the green test, too.

That twist has meant that advertising and marketing teams that are familiar with writing clever slogans and with analyzing how many impressions a message makes on potential customers are becoming increasingly acquainted with the nuances of soy inks and electronic alternatives to old-fashioned information packets.

They're not expected to just sit around and wait to be told to think green, either.

Steve Wirtel wants his advertising agency to be proactive. He serves as national client services director for Carollo Engineers, a Phoenix-based consulting firm that answers to a lot of municipal governments as it works on water and wastewater plants.

So he was open to a suggestion from Krome Communications, a Downtown agency that works with the company. An agency employee had learned about a material made of products recycled from the granite industry. Krome officials thought the so-called TerraSkin might make a cutting-edge statement if it were used to replace less environmentally friendly materials for Carollo's bags and "capabilities brochures." TerraSkin, which feels like a heavy paper, costs a lot more than the thin plastic bags the company once used, but it's an investment both in the environment and in marketing.

The company hopes the choice will send a message to clients and employees that its standards match theirs. That's true for potential employees, too. "Almost every graduate these days wants to know what our company's sustainability program is," said Mr. Wirtel.

Those who receive the bags, which carry an explanation about the materials used to make them, will be encouraged to put them to other uses once they've served Carollo's initial purpose.

A lot of well-meaning ideals are helping to push changes in marketing priorities, but business men and women will not deny capitalist motives often make such moves financially sustainable.

Roaring Spring Paper Co., based in the Blair County community of Roaring Spring, had a line of notebooks for a long time that included recycled paper. Recently, the company introduced a line of Environotes notebooks that made recycled content the star.

It's been such a hit in college bookstores that the company is exploring other options. "We're even looking at recycled vinyl notebooks," said Tim Lazor, whose Lazor/Yost Marketing & Design Inc. in Oakmont worked to help create the notebook covers and marketing materials.

Georgia-based flooring company Mohawk takes in billions of recycled plastic bottles annually to use in its Everstrand carpet and other products. Even if consumers didn't care, it wouldn't be a hard sell to the accountants. "We can actually do that less expensively than buying virgin pellets [of plastic]," said David Duncan, vice president of marketing for Mohawk Residential.

Still, consumers are starting to care, so talking about a company's efforts and greening up the marketing strategy is a way to demonstrate more than a superficial commitment to a trendy cause.

Last summer, Mohawk launched a sort of umbrella theme for its environmental efforts under the name Greenworks. Recycling bins have been installed at a number of schools in Georgia and the company pays for bottles collected there. While those kids won't be buying carpet soon, their parents might become more aware of the company's recycled flooring products.

In addition, when Station Square-based marketing agency Marc USA organized an event to show off Mohawk's green practices to magazine editors, invitations were sent over the Internet and press kits were done digitally to reduce the reliance on brochures. Some might see that strategy as simply a way to cut costs but it also reduces the use of paper and inks and even fossil fuel emissions from trucks delivering the brochures.

Mr. Duncan doesn't apologize for making even green projects prove their worth. "We're in business to make a profit," he said.

There's a trade-off in everything and an evaluation of green projects requires more than just balancing which materials cause the least harm over their life cycles.

Phipps Conservatory knows that its member magazine might look better with glossy paper but has decided to make that sacrifice in return for the environmental gain. In addition, the organization generally prints one exhibit guide for the whole year.

South Side agency Red House Communications, which does work for Phipps, is aware of the client's priorities. That includes printing everything on recycled paper with soy inks and keeping quantities down. The experience can help the agency with other projects, such as creating a direct-mail piece for the Andy Warhol Museum Global Warming Exhibit that was printed on recycled paper.

There's general agreement that finding such materials at a reasonable cost is becoming easier all the time. Increased demand has allowed suppliers to step up production of recycled paper and other environmentally-sensitive products, and larger volumes have helped bring down the prices.

Clients' reliance on advertising and marketing agencies to know their way around such issues seems to make those businesses more aware of their own internal practices -- "Red House recycles all of our paper and, of course, plastics and glass!" wrote principal Gloria Blint in an e-mail -- but clients don't necessarily demand agencies match the companies' own standards.

Mr. Wirtel said he expected Krome and its chief, Bob Neville, to be out looking for ways to help Carollo stay on the environmental cutting edge but, he added, "I don't look to see if Bob is recycling his aluminum cans."

All this growing awareness of the costs, both monetary and environmental, of producing marketing materials can lead to some rather unsettling practices, as Mr. Lazor has discovered over the past year. More than once, he's had firms return brochures from his business.

"It can initially feel like rejection," he said with a laugh. "But it's not. It's just them being green."