Fresh is where it's at!

FRESH Edmonton has recently been launched and it is truly an exciting program. Check out the Fresh - Edmonton website and links for more information. On the site they have provided FRESH Ideas and Tools to Green your Event.

I was particularly interested in the Eco Report Card overview. By measuring the waste, energy consumption and environmental impact of each event, you are not only measuring the effectiveness of your green event strategies, but are establishing a baseline measurement for future events. This is particularly useful when you have an event that occurs every year, with very few parameters changing.

As Nancy Wilson of Meet Green said a few years ago at the GMIC convention in Vancouver, "What gets measured, gets money!"

J

97% Diversion Rate!

I just heard that the GMIC Sustainable Meetings Conference that yours truly just attended in Denver this month was able to achieve a 97% diversion rate! Only 3% went to the landfill. Congratulations organizers, a job well done!

Kudo's to Coca Cola at the Olympic Games!

I was pleased to hear about the efforts of Coca-Cola to green their Olympic Operations. Good job Coca Cola!

Pre-loved makes sense!

Have you ever been brainstorming ideas for an event and wanted to do something creative, but were worried that you couldn't do it because it wasn't very sustainable? Green event planners struggle with this all the time and I wanted to share an example.

Last fall I was planning an event called "Take Flight" and we were trying to incorporate the theme into the conference wherever we could. One activity that I wanted to do is to have a paper airplane contest that any of the participants could enter as many times as they wanted. The person who created the paper airplane that flew the furthest won an actual airline voucher that they could use after the conference. The participants could fly their planes during coffee breaks and lunch in the designated area, a volunteer was there to measure and record their distance.

I struggled with it because I couldn't envision using perfectly good sheets of paper for the airplanes and what could I do with them afterward? I could use 100% recycled content paper, but still, it was very wasteful. So......what about using "pre-loved" paper? You know, the paper that we collect throughout the day, i.e. fax headers, etc. that goes directly into the recycling bin.

That is exactly what we did! The agencies involved saved 8.5 x 11 paper for me during the month prior so that we would have enough for our participants to make as many paper airplanes as they wanted. It worked wonderfully and the paper airplanes were collected and recycled following the event.

This is just an example of how you can still be creative AND sustainable during your events.

J

What Can I do Differently?

The challenge of a green event planner is to look at all aspects of the event and say, "what can I do differently" to minimize the environmental impact. Lets take a practical look at that using a couple of recent events I attended as examples.

While having lunch with my conference colleagues, I noticed that each table had cereal sized bowls filled with toppings for our entree. There were 6 bowls on each table (2 of each topping) and they were filled to the top. After the lunch, I noticed that hardly any of the toppings had been used and I began to consider the waste. All of these would have to be thrown away. So I challenged my lunch mate to brainstorm with me about what we could have done differently. We came up with many different strategies, but the one that we decided would work the best was to use smaller bowls and refill as needed. Yes, there may still have been waste, but there would be less waste. By serving in smaller dishes, trays, etc. and replenishing often, we can reduce the waste at our event.

J