| Subject: Experienced Writer, Blogger |
| From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> |
| Date: 3/16/09, 14:33 |
| To: writers4newsletter@gmail.com |
Waste Not, Whatnot
by Barrett Brown
The Environmental Protection Agency has deemed the event and trade show industry to be the second largest producer of solid waste in the United States, second only to demolition and construction in this dubious honor. Don't apologize to your kids just yet; solid waste, while none too pretty, is only a small stroke of the brush in the greater ecological picture, with experts having developed new and better criteria as of late to determine who's been mucking up the planet and how much mucking up they've been doing. Besides, your kids may very well have their own apologizing to do. When was the last time you checked the locks on the liquor cabinet?
The implementation of eco-friendly operating procedures is surprisingly easy, increasingly marketable, and almost universally profitable. This, at least, was the central message of last month's
Green Event Summit in San Fransisco, where hundreds of event professionals met to showcase new, greener business practices of potential interest dealer owners, project managers, and the like.
Now, skepticism in the face of increasingly ubiquitous buzzwords like "eco-friendly" is understandable, particularly in the absence of any clear definitions. But the environmental movement has come a long way since the first Earth Day, having since branched out from a propensity for vagueness and granola into something that one can actually take to the bank without getting laughed at by the teller.
Those who have pursued greener practices for any particular reason almost always find that they've also managed to save money in the process. And the more mundane the changes, the more surprising the savings often turn out to be. The U.S. Army, for instance, recently audited its paint purchases and discovered that the eco-friendly sorts ended up costing them an average of $1.76 less per can than did the regular types even when both kinds came from the same supplier.
The trick, though, is to go about these things the right way. The Army saved itself a bundle by consulting with Green Seal (greenseal.org), one of several independent certification groups that reckon degrees of ecological efficiency by reference to "Life Cycle Assessment." As Green Seal environmental scientist Nana Wilberforce explains, an LCA measures the environmental impact of a given product or service by tracing its eco-footprint from cradle to grave, covering everything from the early extraction of raw materials to the later disposal of dangerous materials. "In all," says Wilberforce, "the concept of sustainability must be taken into consideration."
Since most firms don't have an environmental scientist on staff, such a nuanced consideration as that may seem somewhat daunting. Luckily, Green Seal offers a free online database of products and services that have met strict LCA standards. Another non-profit, the Greenguard Environmental Institute (greenguard.org), hosts a similar database with an emphasis on emissions and indoor air quality. Between these two websites alone, one can quickly locate green-certified suppliers of surfacing materials, furnitures paint, textiles, adhesives, fleet vehicle maintenance, cleaning services, print materials, and other items of relevance to the trade show world.
But saving money while going green can be even easier than simply changing suppliers, and the event industry is in a particularly advantageous position to do so. "Saving money on eliminating bottled water is the easiest, low-hanging fruit," says Amy Spatrisano, one of the Green Event Summit's keynote speakers and a principal of Meeting Strategies Worldwide. "We've had clients save $25,000 to $50,000 by not serving bottled water and providing large drinking water containers instead. Caterers can also save 15 to 50 percent on serving items in bulk versus individual packets."
But it's easy to get sloppy in the process. "In their enthusiasm to adopt something green, [companies] don't always think it through," Spatrisano notes. "If you're going to eliminate bottled water and provide a refillable container, make sure the container is made environmentally responsibility." LCA standards to the rescue!
Several of the methods by which display dealers in particular stand to save both money and planets are slightly more complicated, though still well within the realm of the doable. Josh Rose, who serves as the Event Designers and Producers Association's vice president of connectivity and also sits on its board of directors and runs his own consultancy firm to boot, points out that the industry practice of pricing shipments by weight provides an opportunity to kill two birds with one etcetera. "Greener products are being designed into exhibits to reduce weight and add flexibility for future adaptation: more aluminum instead of wood and steel, more fabric instead of wood and laminated or plastic finishes. This reduction in weight has lower material handling costs and fuel costs." Then, there's the recycling route. "The red carpet at Fox events in Hollywood for the last year or two has been standardized, cleaned, and reused instead of going to the landfill," Rose points out. "When you are talking about thousands of square feet, that translates to real dollars. Also, builders are creatively restocking used exhibit components and then 'reskinning' them for the next client or show. Instead of pitching old graphics after a specific event, the graphic has become more generic and reused for multiple events with a changeable tag line. One of our clients has saved over $20,000 a year by using this process on an eight-show circuit."
Once you've gotten on the waste wagon, there still exists the matter of communicating your new-found social responsibility to customers. In a market that's becoming increasingly glutted with such terminology, simply describing your firm as "environmentally-friendly" is akin to offering cheap candy in Candy Land. "Greenwashing is becoming a much bigger issue," says Spatrisano, using a term that denotes the making of misleading claims regarding a firm's ecological commitment. Environmental watchdogs have always been on the lookout for fraud in this regard; now, customers are increasingly savvy to such things as well, so it's important to be specific about your greenery. Point out that you're doing business with "LCA-certified suppliers of green products and services," for instance, and you'll get increased business with those who know their stuff, as well as those who are easily impressed by mysterious acronyms.
Also, don't forget to render your TLK's with an upper-trending FRW before the next FOM.
Just kidding. But seriously, though, LCA is a real thing, and you should get on it ASAP.
***
Michael Bevins is a financier, entrepreneur, and consultant who has served in a variety of capacities within a diverse range of industries, including not only oil and gas but also securities, investment banking, health care, information technology, and fine art.
Bevins began to develop into a fixture of the Dallas business world in 1980 as a registered commodities broker for First National Monetary, where he ranked first in sales for three of the five years he was employed there, opening up over $50 million in new accounts over the duration. He had similar success as an oil and gas consultant at Continental Western Energy before moving to San Francisco to serve as vice president of corporate finance and investment banking at Westock Securities, where he dealt with subjects ranging from mergers and acquisitions to evaluation analyses. In 1993, Bevins moved to Los Angeles to co-found Century Trust, a medical PPO at which he served as general partner. At the same time, Bevins also acted as conceptual advisor for fine art distributor Curators Collection, Inc., a role he held from 1990 to 1996, at which point he founded the pioneering information technology holding company Web Solutions in order to raise start-up capital for SuperMarket of the Internet, an early e-commerce website which would go on to contract with such more traditional firms as Colgate-Palmolive, Avon Cosmetics, and Readers Digest. But his continued interest in art led him to found Virtual Art Solutions in 2001, a tech firm of which the chief purpose was to develop a unique retail application for use in the fine art industry which itself drew upon bleeding-edge kiosk and printing technology and which eventually engaged in a test implementation partnership with Home Depot. Finally, Bevins made the move to Florida, where he served as vice president of corporate development for Club & Community Corp, a Boca Raton-based firm specializing in consultation, sales, and marketing on behalf of its clients in the leisure resort and private country club industries.
Bevins now brings his astonishing array of talents to S.K. Oil & Gas.