Swag: Done the Sustainable Way When we changed our name to Yale School of the Environment and established The Forest School last year, we knew it was time to re-imagine school swag. Priority No. 1 — sustainability. Stress balls, Chapstick, coffee mugs, tote bags, key chains, T-shirts, baseball caps, water bottles, smartphone projectors — the list of swag items seems endless and not very sustainable. We’ve all received items meant to welcome us to a new job/school/community, used them once — or not at all — then lost or tossed them. Or, on the other side, we’ve often been excited to have a new T-shirt or other item to represent our organization that we bulk order it without thinking too much about how or by whom it was made. As a school of the environment, we knew that if we were going to create merchandise with our name on it, we needed to be more thoughtful about the environmental impact and labor practices behind its design and production.