When will advertising "Go Green?"

I was at work the other night and one of my fellow servers who is in law school was informing us about how some big oil company (either Exxon or Chevron I believe) bought the patent for a fully electric car that plugged into the wall and could maintain speeds up to 140 mph. I think he said the car was created by GM and that the big oil company wanted to hide it as it had the potential for being disastrous to the oil industry. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but either way, it got me thinking about all of the green efforts efforts coming out of almost every industry, except maybe the oil industry.

Entire furniture companies are being created on the basis of being "green furniture designers." Free calendars are available online with a tip to staying green for each day such as "plugging the bath tub" and "use fluorescent bulbs." Banks are getting creative and offering a $1,500 bonus to any employee who buys a hybrid car as part of a PR effort. Today, going green is something almost every business/industry must consider to stay competitive. Consumer's care about environmentally-friendly businesses. But when will the advertising agency "go green?"

I can't say this on the record because I've never seen any research to support it, but I would bet that the advertising industry is one of the least "green" industries. I worked at an agency this summer and I can't stress enough how much paper was wasted. Exhorbitant amounts of paper were printed and automatically tossed. Today my group met, and one of our members has a job in which she can print things. We were debating whether to make the background on something black and when one member suggested to keep it white because making it black would use a lot of ink, this idea was completely discarded because the amount of ink wasted was unimportant.

I'm not preaching because I'm definitely guilty, but it I just found it interesting that the industry which strives to help other companies become more likable is one of the worst industries at being green.