With 200,000 people attending Dreamforce in San Francisco this week, Commercient calculates that at least 15 business cards will change hands with each person in attendance. That equates to more than 3,000,000 business cards being handed out in one week alone, at one tradeshow.

What does this mean for the environment? 

Following its commitment with environmental causes and being on top of trending, emerging technologies, Commercient teamed up with Andres Espinoza from Affinity Business Cards to help reduce the use of wasteful paper business cards by replacing them with electronic business cards. 

How do NFC cards change the traditional concept of exchanging paper business cards at a trade show? Does it work? Besides helping the environment, electronic business cards ensure that the contact information you just shared with the person you just met is not lost. It’s stored in the cloud, so no matter how many flyers, printed business cards or promotional materials you carry, electronic business cards will keep that valuable information saved.

Richard Jenkins, Co-founder of Commercient, sees this “as a chance for trade show sponsors and attendees to comfortably reduce their paper waste while improving the digital interaction. In the Tradeshow industry the free giveaways, trinkets, toys, flyers and cards are commonly referred to as ‘landfill’ because that is where the vast majority ends up within a few days of the show, but we realized that it isn’t necessary.”

With the recent NFC capability across iOS and Android, and with QR as a backup, there is no need for paper flyers or paper business cards anymore. In fact printed paper materials are dead upon printing. 

“Within minutes of Andrew showing me the digital cards the light went on for sustainable trade-show attendance. With a touch of the NFC card to the phone we can push a website, contact card, LinkedIn profile, video, landing page, or flyer. Unlike printed paper cards, with NFC Affinity Business Cards we can update and refresh the information at any time. We are going to be doing our part to share information responsibly at tradeshows while reducing unnecessary waste,” he said. 

Richard Jenkins also stated that Commercient has a goal to be completely free of printed materials by 2020 for all trade shows. “At Dreamforce 2019 alone our Commercient team will reduce the use of over 1,000 business cards over a 5 day period.”

How Do NFC Cards Work?

• * These are plastic business cards used to Tap against an Android or an iPhone (they also have a QR code for phone models that don’t have NFC chips). 
• * It lets you send people your contact details with a tap or just point your camera at the QR on the back (no app required), without paper cards (this saves the environment and the landfill because peopel throw them out after a show). 
• * This also lets you immediately say “great, now that my contact is on your screen, just shoot me a message and I will get back to you next week after the show”.

So no more lost business cards with valuable contact information. Partner with technology, get the most out of Dreamforce and other trade shows and create a positive environmental impact.