Michael Hart

It’s Turning Green All Over
September 20, 2007

This is quite the editor’s quandary.

Although Tradeshow Week can’t go back as far as Al Gore can, I do feel like it was quite some time ago that we started writing about environmental sustainability issues. It’s truly been years since we first started seeking out those companies, organizations, venues – anything – that seemed to be moving in the opposite direction of the mainstream mode of operations, which has most often been to take a bulldozer to an exhibit hall at the end of a show and shovel everything into a landfill somewhere.

Things really started to turn around when we did an issue earlier this year devoted to this particular topic. Granted, every magazine in the world by now has done its Green Issue, but we worked hard to seek out anybody and anything that seemed like it was going to help make show managers, exhibitors and attendees think twice before tossing something in the trash.

To say the least, the tide has turned – at least among those whose job it is to pump out press releases. Now, every time a venue thinks about installing a waterless urinal or a show manager prices out the possibility of recycling aisle carpet, we hear about it.

I’m not really complaining: This is what we wanted. In fact, in the upcoming issue of TSW, Assistant Editor Stephanie Corbin gives a rundown of some of the most recent significant developments around the world along these lines.

The not-necessarily-bad news is that marketing and PR people have one more reason to send out a press release these days. The good news is that the bar is being pushed higher and higher in terms of what kind of green initiative qualifies as news.

Posted by Michael Hart on September 20, 2007 | Comments (0)