Tools to Get There

Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 10/21/2009 3:23:00 PM

Sustainability isn’t something that just happens at shows. It takes a lot of work and a lot of dedicated people behind the scenes, toiling to provide the tools – and services – the industry needs to make each event a little bit greener.

Darren Berg: Get on the Bus

Show attendees often don’t think about the carbon footprint they leave when traveling from their hotel to a convention center. But if you’re in Seattle, Los Angeles or Portland, Ore., Darren Berg, CEO of Seattle-based MTR Western, a tradeshow transportation provider, is thinking about it for you.

Berg has said many times his desire to make his buses environmentally friendly stems from the unpleasant changes that have taken place in the Redwood forests along the Oregon-Washington border he traveled through in his youth during river trips with his mother and father, an avid fly fisherman,.

“We’re pretty proud of what we’ve done,” Berg previously told TSW of his transportation company. “It will cause people in the motor coach industry to follow our lead.”

Some of the steps Berg has taken to make the company as green as possible include reducing its emissions by more than 50 percent in the past few years with motor coaches outfitted with exhaust gas recirculation engines, burning an aggressive blend of biodiesel, training drivers to conserve fuel and avoid excessive idling, using a special type of tire, heating the company’s shops with recycled engine oil and purchasing carbon offsets from the Pacific Forest Trust for what MTR Western can’t reduce.

“Some (tradeshow) clients are so excited they have found a carbon-neutral carrier, they can’t control themselves,” Berg has said.

In fact, the company works hard to be better than carbon-neutral, shooting for carbon-negative. According to the company, it purchased 6,000 metric tons of carbon offsets last year in anticipation of creating 5,736 metric tons.

This dedication to the environment earned MTR Western the contract to service last year’s annual meeting in Seattle of the Professional Convention Management Assn., which has rigorous greening standards for its meeting.

Tom Bowman: Paving the Way for Businesses

Tom Bowman, president of Bowman Global Change and Bowman Design Group, came up with a comprehensive approach for greening businesses that, during a two-year period, allowed his firm to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent, landfill waste by 45 percent and water consumption by 18 percent – and saved him money in the process.

He did so while on a mission to see if the business community could take some giant steps toward sustainability without losing out financially, and was glad to find the answer was “yes.”

He developed the Bowman Global Change to help companies develop green business plans; he is spearheading the Exhibit Industry Climate Project, a complete carbon emissions inventory for the tradeshow industry; he is the founder of the Climate Solutions Project, an initiative to engage the public in climate challenge related issues; and, since 1990, he has worked with Southern California Edison on energy efficiency education projects, to name a few of his endeavors.

According to Margit Weisgal, president and CEO of the Trade Show Exhibitors Assn., which has featured Bowman in its master’s program workshops, he is passionate about sustainability in a way that “goes beyond lip service,” providing practical solutions to the exhibit industry. “As a primary instructor in the Trade Show Exhibitors Assn.’s master’s program, he enthuses the audience and leads by example,” she said. “Tom makes being green easy, affordable and worth the investment.”

Bowman said, “For me, the tradeshow industry and its cousins, museums and marketing events, are natural and familiar places to contribute.”

As for what’s underway for Bowman going forward, he said he is furthering greening operations at his company; working toward conducting extensive carbon emissions research; and helping the California Air Resources Board to improve its information resources for small business that want to reduce their carbon footprints.

“There is so much wasted energy,” Bowman said. “Everything we touch we can make enormous improvements without making sacrifices.” 

Mike Ellis: Shipping With an Environmental Bent

When people think about going green at tradeshows, usually they think about what they can do to make the show itself more sustainable.

Mike Ellis, president of EA Logistics, a freight shipping company, wanted to find a way to be a little more sustainable at the beginning of the process, before an exhibitor’s booth even gets to the show.

“You can’t ignore the facts around global warming, and, in the freight business, we’re unfortunately contributing it,” Ellis said.

He added a sustainable option to the company’s services, Delivered GrEAn. First, Ellis said, EA Logistics streamlined efficiencies on all its shipments to make them as environmentally sound as possible.

Shipments are made on fully loaded, fuel-efficient trucks that run on biodiesel and don’t idle while being loaded and unloaded. But that wasn’t enough. For the clients who ask for the Delivered GrEAn service, EA Logistics purchases carbon offsets from Carbonfund.org to make the shipments carbon-neutral – at no additional charge to the client.

The company also teams up with other companies with similar vision, including Stetson Convention Services, an environmentally conscious general service contractor.

“It’s paramount to our credibility to use vendors that share our commitment and vision,” said Anah Corley, vice president of business development at Stetson. “I cannot say enough about Mike Ellis and Delivered GrEAn. By expanding their program and creating a legacy of improved environmental practices amongst the logistics industry, he has created a paradigm shift in the way people package and ship goods for expositions.”

So far, more than 100 clients have taken advantage of the Delivered GrEAn program, and the company is the official carrier for several green shows.

“I’ve always been a green guy,” Ellis said.

“The addition of the carbon-offset program (Ellis) offers a truly innovative way to account for carbon that cannot otherwise be reduced and has been an enormous benefit to both our internal logistics department and our exhibitors needing sustainable solutions,” Corley said.

Ellis said it isn’t just the world now that he was thinking of when he started the program, but also the next generation.

“I’ve got young kids, and I don’t want them growing up in a less stable world,” he added.

Amy Spatrisano: An Industry’s Education

Amy Spatrisano claims she was using green meetings practices long before she realized there was a name for it.

Whether she wants to take credit for her long-standing commitment to environmental stewardship or not, Spatrisano’s pioneering efforts have been instrumental in the growing environmental movement within the meetings and convention industry.

As principal of MeetGreen, a certified conference management and consulting firm specializing in green meetings, the 21-year industry veteran has been consulting, training and speaking about green meetings for nine years, but has been busier than ever since the green movement went mainstream just a few years ago.

As co-founder and current president of the Green Meetings Industry Council, Spatrisano also serves as chairwoman of the APEX Green Meetings and Events Practice Panel, which has been working for almost two years to produce green standards for the industry by the end of this year.

How she still finds time for her day job – helping organizations and companies employ sustainable practices, business and meetings plans – is anyone’s guess, but making a business case for sustainable meetings and events is a mission that never sleeps.
Shawna McKinley, MeetGreen project manager, said when it comes to sustainability, Spatrisano has taught her how important it is to encourage and support clients as they move through the sometimes daunting process of greening their events.

“Amy has always been good at listening to the challenges that might impede sustainable progress and presenting steps forward that bring everyone along, together,” McKinley said. “This can lead to very inspiring, company-changing results.”

Mollie Spilman: Eliminating Waste Before It Becomes Waste

There’s more than one way to turn a showfloor a deeper shade of green. Other winners may have come up with winning ways to cut down on the waste that accumulates after a show closes. But Mollie Spilman has come up with a plan to not create the material that leads to the waste in the first place.

The Virtual Totebag was the brainchild of Spilman, president and CEO of BDMetrics. The goal is to eliminate – as much as possible – the attendee strolling the aisles of a show with a plastic or cloth totebag stuffed full of brochures, samples and pamphlets, much of which ends up in a hotel room wastebasket before the attendee even leaves for the airport.
Instead, the attendees receive a mobile code that exhibitors can then scan, allowing them to deliver material to the attendee’s e-mail address instead.

“The average attendee produces 61 pounds of solid waste at a three-day conference, compared to 13.5 pounds during a three-day period at home,” Spilman said. “This is an alternative to printing, shipping and distributing paper collateral.”

Freeman Senior Vice President Michael Bruley, said, “Mollie is really on to something here. It saves many, many trees.”

Through an agreement with Freeman, the general service contractor is marketing the Virtual Totebag for BDMetrics. It’s already in use at the ISA Intl. Sign Expo and several Reed Exhibitions shows.

Bruley pointed out that the technology does more than save the wasted material that attendees throw away before they even get home, it also saves on the printed material exhibitors must ship to the tradeshow site.

“That’s a lot of material that is not being moved on skids and pallets,” he added.

Freeman is marketing the technology to show organizers who then can offer it to their exhibitors. Besides the benefits to attendees and exhibitors, Spilman pointed out, it can position the show organizer as an industry leader in sustainability. Bruley noted that ultimately it also offers the show organizer another opportunity to communicate directly with attendees.

“This is a revolutionary concept,” he added.

Dan ZumTobel: Putting the Eco in Eco-Badge

According to Registration Control Systems President Edgar Bolton, RCS's main emphasis has been on using technology to make tradeshow registration and lead collection and management more efficient and cost-effective.
 
But about five years ago, Dan ZumTobel, vice president of client relations, began working to also make the RCS registration service greener by using materials less harmful to the environment and eliminating all possible waste in advance and onsite, Bolton said.

ZumTobel focused on the common practice of ordering extra materials so as not to run out onsite. Unfortunately, the excess badges, badge holders, lanyards and reams of paper often went into the trash. Another concern was materials and procedures that leave a large carbon footprint.

“Dan was determined to solve these problems and have RCS take the lead in greening the industry in registration, lead collection and management services, at the same time educating associations and independent show producers on being eco-friendly, greatly reducing waste and saving money in the process,” Bolton said.

After several years of development under ZumTobel’s leadership, the RCS Eco-Badge is in place and used more extensively all the time. No oil-based products are used, there are no badge holders and the badge clip is bio-corn-based.

The badge stock contains 100-percent post-consumer recycled fibers, is acid-free, Forest Stewardship Council-certified, certified-process chlorine-free and made with 100-percent clean energy. The four-color printers use green-friendly ink and no cartridges. The system’s speed means less equipment is needed and less shipping required.

All-electronic reports are provided so no paper reports are necessary. And the RCS Eco-Badge ties into an all-electronic lead management system so no paper is required for lead collection or sales management.

ZumTobel, instrumental in RCS receiving such honors as the Intl. Assn. of Exhibitions and Events’ Green Product Showcase award, said, “It's hard to find an excuse not to use this system. It costs less. It looks better. It's good for the environment.”