Chat with Cat: Make It Easy to Be Green

It’s been a greenish kind of summer. Starting tonight I will be attending Montreat’s 2009 Faith & Environment Conference, put on in partnership with Presbyterians for Restoring Creation.

And a couple of weeks ago I attended the Mountain Green Sustainability Conference at Warren Wilson College. The one-day event featured a host of speakers, workshops, and vendors dedicated to green development. One of the sessions I attended was about greening your events, and it was presented by Georgia Malki, president at Seven-Star green event experts.

So what can you, as an event planner or coordinator, do to help our planet? Many of these ideas came from these two conferences, and I hope they will inspire you to be greener in whatever ways you can.

• For the Faith & Environment Conference, organizers and participants will be purchasing carbon offsets from NativeEnergy. Conference leaders will purchase offsets for the carbon generated by the event itself, and they have asked participants to calculate and purchase offsets for their travel. NativeEnergy off-sets carbon by purchasing win energy and energy generated from the methane in livestock manure, and their website features several handy calculators.
  
  
• One of Seven-Star’s main projects is landfill diversion—sorting “trash” into appropriate areas to keep as much of it as possible out of the landfill. Georgia reported a diversion rate of close to 90%, and they green huge events like the DNC. The secret to their success is their use of volunteers—both to staff the receptacles and to sort the refuse. Asheville’s Downtown After Five events also use volunteers to staff the bin areas, which makes people feel better about doing the right thing.
  
  
• One way to keep trash out of the landfill is to not create it in the first place. One of the biggest offenders in this area is the single-use drink container. Encourage people to bring their own reusable water bottles, and don’t provide any drinks in disposable containers. Sell reusable cups and bottles wherever drinks are provided, and sell disposable (but compostable!) cups for a dollar.
  
  
• Go paperless! Forget handouts and fliers. Post all necessary documents on the event’s website before it starts, and hand out flash drives at the conference, each one containing everything participants may need, including PowerPoint presentations, speaker bios, etc.
  
  
• Don’t sweat the swag. Look for green sources for your merchandise, especially T-shirts. Look for organic cotton options or sweatshop-free organizations.
  
  
• Worried about cost? Let someone else pay for it. If you event has sponsors, keep in mind that every greening action is also an opportunity for sponsor visibility. Put logos on flash drives, water bottles, and even on the signs at the trash bins. Add an optional (or not) fee for carbon offsets on the registration form. Offer lower conference fees for those people willing to volunteer with trash sorting or green education. The planet is our collective responsibility, so let everyone pitch in to help.

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Cat is the Sales Associate at Montreat Conference Center. She loves helping people plan the perfect Montreat Experience and would love to hear from you about how this blog can help you.

Cat can be reached at catw@montreat.org.