Sustainability: A Slice of Pi

It's 3.14pm on the 14th day of the third month. Time to raise a nerdy cocktail and celebrate a slice of pi!

You remember pi: that long, painful number your math teacher scrawled across the blackboard? The one you bragged to your friends you could memorise up to the 100th digit? (Don't tell me that was just me....I've seen you guys on You Tube!)

Even if you didn't have all of it in your head, you knew 3.14 was that number you had to memorise to plug into certain formula on tests. You may not have really understood what it was, or how it all fit together, but hey: got you a pass on your math final, so all good!

On Pi Day I've been thinking: there's a lot in common between one of the most well-known math constants and sustainability. And at risk of being terribly nerdy, a fun tribute is in order!

Ever get the feeling you're going in circles? Pi shifts our attention from the linear to the circular. You can use it to calculate the distance around a circle or the area of it. Sustainability too tries to shift our thinking from considering things as a straight path forward to a closed-loop system. Recycling circle: I'm looking at you.

The other parallel? It has been 4000 years. We've still not figured out either yet. The first evidence of pi dates back to 1900 BC. Today we're still trying to get more accurate in our calculation of it. 10 trillionth digit calculated - 10 trillion to go! Something tells me sustainability will be a similar journey: no end destination, only increasing levels of complexity, improvement and accuracy in how we practise it.

There's no numbers to express how much I 'value' you. Pi also has a value that can't be expressed. The numbers in it never repeat in the same way. Similarly sustainability seems 'invaluable'. Every time you think you've got the formula calculated along comes a new situation, or more complex sustainability issue (climate change, food security and global economic dynamics, anyone?). The only constant? Needing to go deeper and continuing to change!

It's not about me. It's about me, and you, and you, and you.... Maybe the most interesting similarity between pi and sustainability is that both are about relationships. Alone, they have very little benefit. As a string of numbers, mathematicians strive to get to a more accurate expression of the ratio of pi: the relationship between a circle's circumference and it's diameter. As a concept sustainability is a mix of interconnected ideas that practitioners strive to describe and refine. In the end, you can try to make these relationships more and more precise all you want. They still remain an expression about the relationship between things: their relevance and benefit comes applying them.

So, raise a glass to pi. Raise a glass to sustainability. But most of all raise a glass to all those who use them for everything from engineering to science and event planning!

Wristbands don't solve war crimes, or event sustainability problems

I'm going to go out on a limb and take a guess that most of us didn't know who Kony was on Monday. But 6 days later, it's hard to find a single person who's not aware of the man.

As often happens with these kinds of things, social awareness of an important issue arcs on an expected path. Mad trending of the topic. Water cooler conversation. Broader awareness. Critique. Uncertainty and intellectual conflict about everything from the integrity of efforts to what should be done to really solve the problem. And possibly by next week Kony will fade into the background as the social speed of awareness-based advocacy slows and becomes old news. Those people who are devoted to the issue (and not the figurehead of Kony) will continue to work hard to solve it, while the rest of us will move on, feeling satisfied we helped raise the profile of an important issue that may bring a man and others like him to justice.

On March 8 The Atlantic published a critical piece on the idea that awareness-building about complex issues like war crimes is a very dangerous practise. Arguing that yes, it's important to care about issues, but that we are all kidding ourselves if we think buying and wearing a wristband will solve much of anything.

In reading the article I can't help but think about how a similar point needs to be made about sustainable events. Evidence suggests we sometimes assume sustainable events are about awareness-building. That getting the issue on people's radar is the problem that needs to be solved. If people know, they'll do better, or so we think. So, we provide hotel room guests with a choice for linen reuse and assume water will be conserved when the towels are hung up. We include a session in our conference agenda about sustainability and hope attendees will be inspired to make better decisions. We add a clause to an RFP to encourage suppliers share their sustainable practises so we can hopefully leverage more value from a purchase decision by balancing the triple bottom line, instead of just a financial one. All important steps to say to our stakeholders: these are things we care about and we think you should too.

Evidence also suggests we place a lot of importance on the experiential aspects of sustainable events. We provide opportunities for attendees to participate in volunteer projects. We feel good contributing to something important like delivering lunches to the homeless, planting trees or enabling a book drive for school children. We actively communicate what we're doing and embrace the 'feel good' nature of these programs. They often lead to a good photo opportunity to share with the world and indeed may help, even if only for a moment. All important steps to say to our stakeholders: our commitment to sustainability is visible and adds to your experience of our event in a way that we hope also makes you feel like you're contributing to a greater good.

Although they provide benefits, event sustainability initiatives that only focus on awareness-building and attendee experiences are dangerous for four reasons:

They reassure us we're addressing sustainability while enabling us to avoid attending to other highly complex social and environmental issues in the event industry. Take food, for example. I'll be the first to admit that diving into improving food sustainability at your event is an incredibly intimidating undertaking. It touches on everything from fair labour to energy, carbon, water conservation, ethics, genetic modification, packaging, toxic pesticide use, human health and beyond. It's very attractive to take the path of least resistance when faced with the option of diving into these complicated topics by researching and changing your supply chain. Eliminating bottled water, providing a sponsored tumbler and encouraging attendees to reuse it seems a much easier way to check off the sustainable food box.

They miss critical business opportunities that sustainability can contribute to. If we prioritise sustainable event tactics based on visibility and public relations potential we may overlook those solutions that can make the biggest difference to our bottom line, and the planet. Destination selection is one example. It's the earliest and arguably most invisible decision you make for your event. Yet it has the greatest potential carbon impact. It can also affect your budget immensely, potentially eliminating the need to invest in shuttles or additional directional signage and staff. Yet if attendee-facing sustainability opportunities get sorted to the top of the list we can miss this critical opportunity to make a big difference.

They divert precious resources from real actions that can make a material difference. Where time and money are limited it is essential to direct both to those sustainability measures that make the most material difference. That cut to the heart of a sustainability problem, rather than dealing with a symptom of it. For example, why spend thousands on a carbon offset when those funds could be invested in hiring someone to develop a comprehensive carbon reduction strategy for your event? One that actively looks at your decision making process and supply chain for ways to reduce emissions and business costs?

They expose you to risk. If the Kony story shows little else it reveals we have become a cynical and suspicious public. In the age of radical transparency, it took mere days for critics to question the story and intentions of the people behind it. The lesson to be learned? You can rest assured that when you hang up the poster for your event's CSR experience that someone, somewhere will have something to say about it. And most likely it will be a "yes, but": "That's nice you're recycling used soap, but how are you solving the problem of packaging waste? And access to clean water?"
Those event sustainability initiatives that only build awareness and promote experience in the absence of considering how it may make them vulnerable to critique do so at their own peril.

So should we be silent about characters like Kony, or forgo efforts to build awareness and engage our attendees in sustainability? Of course not, not if it's appropriate and the audience wants to engage. But we need to acknowledge these kinds of steps rarely solve root problems that are necessary to make the event industry more sustainable. To make that claim we need to continue to go deeper and farther than educating stakeholders and providing attendee wristbands.

Water Karma

I try to be a good water-conserving citizen.

Ellie, my cherished tumbler, has logged many miles onsite at events with me. In fact, since I was gifted her I reckon she's kept over 525 coffee cups and even more water bottles out of the landfill. Not bad, little Ellie! I also use my four minute shower timer from EventCamp Vancouver. Hair-washing day is a bit of a challenge though: thick long hair sucks up soap like a sponge and takes forever to rinse out.

Ellie :) Packed and ready for the road!

Even though I try through small steps like these, I still have a ways to go to be water wise. I could drive less. Eat less meat. Turn off lights and unplug appliances. There are many ways to reduce water use you might not even be aware of!

So this month I'm getting serious about it.

Today I'm starting a WATER KARMA jar. Consider it like a swear jar, except instead of adding a quarter every time you swear, you add one for every time you waste water.

Where's the money going? To support something that will pay for my water sins, of course! All quarters earned through April 21 will be donated to the GMIC's One Drop Challenge.

I challenge you to commit to your own water-wise changes, and where you can't to donate some Water Karma of your own!

16 FREE sustainable event tools you can use right now

Believe nothing in life comes for free? There's always a string attached? Think again! Right here, right now you can get free help with your sustainable event. No memberships. No cost.

And you know what that means...no reason to procrastinate!

1. Save carbon by finding the closest destination to your attendees.
2. Find out which event destinations are the greenest, (registration required to score your city for its sustainable event offerings).
3. Measure the benefits of printing your event program - or anything really - using post-consumer recycled content paper.
4. Estimate the environmental savings of reusing and recycling your exhibit carpet and find a place to recycle it.
5. Find event venues around the world who have verified sustainable practices.
6. Write an event sustainability policy.
7. Create a waste management plan for your event (registration required).
8. Find out where to recycle any material anywhere in the USA. 
9. Locate a greener transportation provider for your event.
10. Use a GRI Reporting template for your event.
11. Find a food bank to take your left over food in Canada or the USA.
12. Choose a better type of seafood for your banquets.
13. Find local growers in North America. 
14. Recycle your event's e-waste.
15. Translate your carbon savings into everyday terms that attendees understand.
16. Calculate your event or event business' carbon footprint here, here, here or here.

Have a free sustainable event tool or know of one? Please comment!

How to Attain Hotel Elite Status, by Shawna McKinley

The New York Times recently published an informative summary of what it takes to attain hotel elite status.

In response I'd like to offer my own version.

*ahem*

Rather than staying a minimum number of nights, how about I agree to help you, my favourite hotel, to cut your costs and you reward me each time I stay?

My end of the bargain, I'll agree to:

• Participate in your towel and sheet reuse program that your housekeepers actually follow through on.
• Never use the bottled water you leave in my room unless I really need to in which case I'll pay for it.
• Bring and use my own coffee mug so you can stop buying those foam plastic disposable ones.
• Turn off the lights and the television when I leave my room.
• Do whatever you need me to do (or not do) to that computer on the wall that controls the HVAC to make sure I'm an energy efficient guest in your climate.
• Sort my recyclables in my room in whatever means is necessary to make sure they stay out of landfill in your city.
• Not touch that pad of paper you leave me to write on.
• Decline newspaper delivery to my room.

And in return there is one little tiny benefit I'd like, if you don't mind:

• Free, fast wireless service for any electronic device I might have in my room.

I figure this is a fair bargain. After all, I imagine the combined financial benefit of reduced water and energy use and not having to buy as much bottled water, disposable cups, newspaper, notepads, replacement bulbs, etc. should add up to roughly what you charge me for the 'net connection.

What do you say? Maybe we can come up with a point-system I earn each time I'm an Elite Green Guest?

So please, forget the free bottled water, newspaper, dedicated check-in lines and free tickets to shows. Let me be me when I stay with you. I promise to Twitter in green glee at your reduced footprint options, also happy that I'm not paying for wireless at your property.

A Love Letter to the Sustainable Event Pro

Looking for information about greener event destinations and tips to make your conference more sustainable? Well, you might want to skip over today's blog post then. It's about to get decidedly...lovey.

I don't mean the mushy and cute kind of love you might bestow in a puppy-cuddling CSR session. Or the congratulatory kind of love I might offer a peer I admire for achieving something great. Nor is it a hippy kind of love that just digs those reusable, hand-crafted name tags, man.

What I want to talk about is the uncomfortable kind of love that puts all the cards on the table in a way that risks a lot, with uncertain reward. The kind of love that I think may be in the heart of many people who struggle to address sustainability challenges in the event industry.

In a recent Love Note to the Workaholic, Brene Brown discusses the need for today's leaders to be more vulnerable, more authentic and yes, more loving. She talks about the fear and uncertainty we experience at being ourselves and admitting things - life, projects, events - might not be working. She calls out the anxiety that consumes us as we prevent any hole in our armour-of-performing-to-perfection to show. She points out the certain, stoic 'boss face' we put out to the world which enables us to stay busy, appear strong and seem like we've got it all together. The show must go on, after all. Never was the saying truer than in the event industry!

But must the show really go on?

Or will it without challenging some of the certainties we hold dear? Could admitting our problems be an opening to innovation? Could transparency about our imperfections be the path to leadership and a competitive advantage? Could it be a great act of love to ask if things could be better and present ideas that enable us to evolve?

On Valentine's Day, when the pressure is on to share the love, I can't help thinking about moments when I've felt the most loved. And they didn't usually include those times fresh flowers came to the door. Typically it was when I'd done something really stupid. Gotten angry. Felt insecure. Been terribly sad. And in a moment of vulnerability, after all that had gone wrong between myself and whomever I'd wronged, the time I felt the most loved was when one of us gave in and said:  "I understand. It's okay. We'll get through it". And with a few words, and a sincere, understanding look, a door of empathy was opened and things were right with the world again. I felt accepted. And I felt loved. Even in a very less-than-perfect state.

I have a hunch many sustainability professionals are hamstrung by similar feelings of uncertainty. A desire to not expose themselves to vulnerability. A propensity to dilute a radical idea to change the status quo for fear it will be met with ridicule. A leeriness to measure and share information because it might expose a weakness that a competitor could capitalise on or criticise.

So to all of you sustainable event risk-takers who make yourselves vulnerable in spite of these pressures, I'd like to offer a love letter of thanks to you for:

• Having courage to state a problem and ask for a solution, especially when it goes against the norm, including eliminating bottled water for VIPs! 
• Transparently sharing your successes, failures and sustainable event case studies so we can all learn to tackle problems in more effective ways.
• Being willing to forgo a short-term benefit for a long-term gain, especially when you see it leaves a window of opportunity to your competitor.
• Leading sponsors and exhibitors down a more sustainable path by requiring less wasteful practices, even when it risks critical sources of revenue.
• Admitting when someone may not be treated fairly, whether it be a housekeeper, co-worker or attendee and contributing to making the situation right.
• Playing in the sandbox of hybrid and virtual events. You are the futurists who see the potential to grow events in carbon-sensitive ways.

People passionate about event sustainability do courageous work. Loving work. On Valentine's Day and everyday let's take a step to empathise and engage with one another.

Love ya!

<3

10 Tips for Sustainable Event Signs

Peas and carrots. Milk and cookies. Signs and events. Some things just always go together. On-site graphics are a big sustainable event challenge. Reductions have huge benefits, financially and environmentally. But cut back too much and you better hope you're not the one staffing the information desk to bear the brunt of complaints from attendees having no idea how to navigate your venue. Not to mention listen to a disappointed creative department who complains the event doesn't have a strong brand.

So what to do about making signage more sustainable? A list of ideas to ponder:

1. Choose a venue that is easy to navigate. We've all been to them: event venues that make you wonder what the architect was thinking. Those places where you always seem lost, everything looks the same, and nothing makes it obvious 'you are here'. Then there are other venues that get it just right, designed in a way that makes it intuitive where to go and how to get there. Save yourself money and your attendees a big headache by choosing a venue that by its inherit design and existing signs minimises the need for temporary directional signs from the outset.

2. Take advantage of existing digital signage. More and more venues are installing digital signs for session space and concourse areas. Take advantage of it if you can. Onsite digital signage doesn't need to be shipped and can be programmed and corrected more easily than hard signage. It's also a great way to enhance sponsor recognition, especially if available in concourse areas.

Great use of venue-provided digital signage at EventCamp Vancouver

3. Consider directional staff. Granted, there is a cost involved and use of staff may still require branded items like shirts, or smaller hand-held signs. But in an age where we have less face-to-face customer service, providing smiling, helpful directional staff instead of directional signage can be a throw-back to the good-old-days of 'I remember when I could talk to a person and not a computer to get the help I need'. Plus, temporary local staffing agencies are becoming an essential employment resource for many people displaced by tougher economic times, helping the economic spin-offs of events to circulate in local host communities.

Directional staff help JavaOne attendees navigate a complicated event neighbourhood with the aid of floor plan signs printed on cardboard at the entrance to the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco

4. Divide, and conquer. I tend to think of event signs as coming in two types: one-time and multiple use. When planning for signage it can help to think of things this way in order to navigate the trade-offs involved in selecting substrates. Because one-time use signage is disposable it makes sense to make it out of most sustainable materials. Switching to paper board from plastic or foamcore is a great example of this and is something that can typically be done on a cost-neutral or cost-saving basis. In order to enable reuse other graphics may need to be made out of more durable options. For example, many large-scale banners are made of PVC, a less environmentally desirable material than recycled content fabric or compostable substrates which can be used for banners, but are typically more expensive and may not hold up well to multiple uses. However, if designed for reuse the durability of PVC banners or boards could be justifiable. On the flip side, banners that include temporary sponsor logos may be better produced using a recyclable or compostable substrate.

Non-dated reusable polyester banners made of recycled content grace the hallways to Cisco Live US 2011

5. If you can marry it, don't date it. Many events produce large branded installations, banners and kiosks. Many of these materials have high reuse potential, especially if venues are the same year to year or installations can be built according to standard specifications. So if you can reuse it, don't date it. Eliminating dates and locations is the easiest way to maximise your investment in branded event items you can't avoid.

The Canadian Tourism Commission uses generic, non-dated signage for Canada Media Marketplace

6. Print direct to substrate. Some printing processes use films that create waste in the printing process. Asking your graphics company to print direct to substrates like cardboard eliminate this step and therefore waste, while improving the ability to recycle signs.

7. Avoid grommets and adhesives that can limit recycling. Says it all really. Many of us are familiar with the need to sort recyclables, either at home or at the recycling plant. Mixing materials introduces one more un-necessary barrier to recycling, so avoid it if you can.

8. Substrate matters. Prioritise renewable materials and recycled content. Use as much post-consumer content as possible. This applies to paper, plastics and fabrics.

Fully recyclable cardboard substrates are a staple for temporary event signs at Oracle OpenWorld

9. Just say no to adhesives. There are some options that are emerging that are better for the planet, but adhesive graphics should be left out of your on-site branding if you can avoid them. New options exist on the market that are paper-based and include recycled content, which helps. However, glues used to adhere films make adhesive signage non-recyclable so if you're trying to eliminate landfill take it off your graphics list.

10. Donate and re-purpose. Sometimes you're stuck with a sign that is non-recyclable that you can't reuse. Over the years I've been amazed what artists, students, actors and farmers can do with event signage. So if you're stuck with a sign you'd hate to landfill ask your venue or the convention and visitors bureau if they know of any resource centres that could re-purpose your sign to a community group. Alternatively businesses exist that may be willing to take your banners to create bags, wallets and laptop cases.

Intel Developer Forum re-purposes event banners as stylish messenger bags that are used at other Intel events

Moscone Center donates vinyl event banners to local schools for murals and drama productions

These are just a few ideas that have helped event organisers maximise the impact of their event brand while minimising the impact on the planet. Welcome other ideas and examples!