Event planners are asking themselves every day what they can do to make their events as environmentally friendly as possible. There are many little things, but when you are the organizer of the Governors’ Global Climate Summit 2 in Los Angeles, September 29 – October 2 you don’t just make a statement, you need to write a paragraph!

JupiterPx, the event producer of the Global Climate Summit, took on the massive overall logistics of content, staging, multi-media, design and production, and brought in Genesis Creative Group to work in tandem putting into place the details of the meetings, attendee registration and environmental efforts before, during and after the Summit. Laura Bell Way, Managing Director of Genesis, took the lead on greening the summit. “Carl [Bendix, Executive Director of Jupiterpx] knows my history with sustainability initiatives for conferences. He trusted me to lead this effort.”

Partnering as well with CalEpa, an Event Environmental Impact Reduction and Reporting Team (or “Green Team”) was formed to analyze every aspect of the event for its overall carbon footprint: from paper usage in the planning process, to collecting attendee travel data and using green purchasing standards for all conference items and giveaways.

One of the largest on-site elements to the green effort was the venue, the Century Plaza Hotel. Bell Way approached the hotel with a long laundry list of environmental items the hotel had to meet even before the contract for the four-day event that would bring in thousands of attendees, media and VIPs would be signed.

“It was vitally important that the hotel could do everything we asked,” Bell Way, who is also an active member of the Green Meetings Industry Council, says. “We knew we were under a lot of scrutiny from the environmental press and community. There could be no slip ups. I was given the green light – so to speak – for going father than I usually am able to do with corporate clients on their environmental policies.”
Once the contract was underway, Bell Way continued to meet with the hotel’s Director of Engineering and Head Chef as well as California EPA to make sure everything was moving ahead as planned. “We had put into the contract an aggressive performance clause on sustainability initiatives, enacting penalties if they were not met. Happily, the hotel was great and the event was a huge environmental success. Even National Public Radio (NPR) noticed all our efforts from the recycle bins to the edible apple décor.”

One thing they might not have seen or known about was the fact that the hotel had installed an organic waste disposal system before the event – one of the stipulations of the contract’s environmental performance clause. “Knowing there was nothing in place at the time of the agreement, wee demanded that there be a food waste diversion process of some sort during our event. Although we typically encourage composting, we were pleased with the comprehensive process that Chef Lassen and his stewarding staff put in place to recover food waste throughout the hotel.  The hotel installed a Bio-Ez decomposer, which breaks down proteins and puts it back out as liquid sewage. In less than a week, their typical land fill load dropped nearly three tons, a huge decrease and it keeps on reducing.”

Here are some additional steps the organizers took…

1. Paperless registration and communication was used with attendees

2. Teleconferencing was utilized for all planning meetings while at the actual summit all content was available on the internet, Live and post-event web casts by Green Street Scene allowed people to attend for free and without traveling.

3. Limited paper handouts were used onsite in sessions and in Expo.

4. Attendees were provided with public transportation and shuttle options for getting to conference

5. Attendees’ travel distances, methods, and ridesharing was recorded for overall carbon footprint measurement and offsetting

6. All leftover items from conference including banquet food were donated

7. Badges, lanyards, and badge holders were made of recyclable and compostable materials

8. Staff uniforms were made of bamboo fiber and were donated post event

9. Energy, water, waste, drayage, and other metrics of the event were tracked and recorded

10. All print material including signs were produced with plant based dyes using green printing processes using post-consumer content paper whenever possible

11. All print materials were recycled at the end of the Summit

12. All food service was prepared using sustainable, organic food wherever possible

13. No disposable service ware was utilized for food functions – no plastic forks, plates, no bottled water (bubblers were used instead and reusable water bottles were given to attendees in the gift bags), no throwaway items of any kind. Porcelain coffee cups were used and sugar was offered in bulk form, no packets.

14. A comprehensive waste management process was in place to reduce overall waste going to landfill.

15. Recycling bins were placed everywhere. The hotel limited light use, radio and TVs in the rooms when not occupied.

16. Edible centerpieces were created with local, donated food items such as apples, almonds, pistachios and figs which attendees enjoyed throughout the day

To get those donations, Sandra Lady took the lead. She was hired by JupiterPx to carry out the list of stipulations that Bell Way had put in place. In addition, she worked with the Director of Catering to ensure that the food that was served at lunches, and how it was served, took into consideration sustainable practices.

“This event and ones like it will go a long way in making the event and meeting industry aware of what it can do,” Bell Way says. “There are so many ways we can lessen our carbon footprint from travel to technology.”