Existing Venues: Managing Sustainability

Greening convention centers is becoming quite the trend as sustainability takes hold in the industry.

The SMG-managed David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh paved the way for the trend: It's the only convention center to be gold-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.

But what about those existing convention centers that can't build in a sustainable way from the ground up? Well, they, too, are implementing and expanding programs to fight global warming, meet the demand of their customers for sustainable options – and aim for LEED certification.

It also helps that SMG's food and beverage arm, SAVOR..., implemented steps earlier this year to green the aspects of the centers it's responsible for.

Other SMG-managed centers are working on ways to be more sustainable beyond the obvious, including the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, the Atlantic City (N.J.) Convention Center and Long Beach (Calif.) Convention Center.

Denver's center, which works with F&B provider Centerplate, started a composting program in July, said Lindsay Smith, the sustainability program administrator at the convention center.

“It was quite a Herculean task,” added John Adams, general manager of the Colorado CC and senior regional vice president for SMG.

Another huge task the center's staff has undertaken: preventing the idling of freight vehicles, taxis and other vehicles.

“It's focusing on getting those different entities to enforce the current idling ordinance (in the city),” Smith said.

The staff started observing the idling times in February, she added, then created signage to alert drivers and bought clocks that count down the idling time for the vehicles.

In Atlantic City, it's electricity that is making the headlines – or, more accurately, the production of it.

About 14,000 solar panels owned by Pepco Energy Services will be installed by year's end on the convention center roof, producing 26 percent of the center's electricity, said Charles Beirne, regional general manager of the convention center.

Another avenue the ACCC is studying is the feasibility of adding a wind turbine on the convention center site. “Hopefully, we'll be the first one,” Beirne said.

Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center, another SMG-managed facility, also has worked to reduce energy and water consumption, among other sustainable efforts.

“Attempts to decrease energy consumption are also made through the participation in a special program with Southern California Edison called the Demand Bidding Program,” said Ellen Schwartz, senior director of sales and marketing for the convention center. In the program, the facility reduces energy during high demand or shortage periods.

Last year, the center participated for 22 days, reducing the equivalent of the power needed for 2,840 homes for a single day and eliminating pollution the equivalent of driving a car for 6,460 days, Schwartz said.

At the Global Spectrum-managed Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, building-wide recycling began Sept. 1 as one of the first greening steps, said Dan Phenicie, marketing manager at the convention center.

“Previously, we did not have building-wide recycling,” he added.

The center's also taking other rudimentary greening steps, including replacing incandescent lights with compact florescent ones, encouraging staff to conserve energy and using earth-friendly cleaning products, Phenicie said.

Jeffrey Rugg, marketing manager for Global Spectrum's Century Center in South Bend, Ind., said one of the newest projects the center implemented is single-stream recycling and replacing old boilers with energy-efficient ones, saving $20,000 to $22,000 per year in gas bills.“We're really getting in on an entry level here at the convention center,” he added.

At Global Spectrum's Greater Richmond (Va.) Convention Center, it's not just about the little things being implemented – it's also about the big thing they add up to.

General Manager Michael Meyers said the convention center was rated “Virginia Green” under standards set by the commonwealth specifically for convention centers.

“I think one of the issues with the industry today is that there is no standard (of green),” he added.

But, even with the Virginia standard achieved, Meyers said, there's still room for more sustainability programs at the convention center.

“I still think there's a ways to go, not only for facilities like ours, but for the country in general,” he added. “I think we're always going to be looking to the future.”