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INEXPENSIVE GREEN ALTERNATIVES
 Every year, my company hosts several marketing events for our top customers and prospects, most of which take place at rented venues throughout the United States. At the beginning of 2009, my company added several Green initiatives to its corporate agenda, but at the same time, it also cut my event-marketing budget dramatically. I’ve looked into some Green event-marketing alternatives, such as using Green products in our event furnishings and buying carbon offsets, but given my ever-shrinking budget, it seems I can’t afford to go Green. What are some changes I can make to my program that will mollify Mother Nature but also neutrally impact my budget — or better yet, save me money?
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START SMALL
Going Green doesn’t mean spending tons of cash. If you use your creativity and consider alternative materials and processes, you can cut costs and your environmental impact at the same time. To get your program moving in the right direction, begin by making small, inexpensive Green changes.
Start by reducing the amount of paper you use. Obviously, the ultimate goal is to replace paper with digital documents. But if you’re not ready to go paper free, narrow the margins to .75 inches on all sides of your documents. According to the Mueller Report conducted by the Penn State Green Destiny Council, reducing margins to .75 (down from Word’s standard 1.25-inch top and bottom margins and 1-inch left and right margins) can decrease your document’s length by 19 percent — ultimately reducing your paper usage and its related costs. Also consider changes in font size and spacing, and always use both sides of a piece of paper.
Another no-cost way to go Green is to task your event-production companies with finding creative, low-cost Green materials to construct your sets, staging, etc. Yes, you can opt for products manufactured with Green materials and processes. But reclaimed wood and found materials cost less than most traditional materials, and you’ll keep them out of landfills to boot. After all, you probably don’t need virgin lumber to create a set that will likely only be used once and then discarded.
Search for “reclaimed” or “salvaged” materials in your area, or check out one of my favorites: Build it Green in New York (www.bignyc.org), a nonprofit retail outlet for salvaged and surplus building materials, including filing cabinets and marble tabletops.
Finally, look at each aspect of your program and determine if you might be able to replace it with a Green alternative. For example, instead of traditional red carpet — which is usually purchased for one-time use and then thrown away rather than cleaned and repurposed — hire a pavement artist to create a VIP walkway with colored chalk. Pavement artists can create everything from simple outlines featuring images and your company’s messages to grand optical illusions, such as the work from Kurt Wenner (www.kurtwenner.com/street) and Edgar Mueller (www.metanamorph.com). Sure, you still have the expenses of the artist, but by shopping around, you’ll likely save money while supporting the community.
 Ethan Rosch,
principal, 19d Inc.,
New York
SELECT GREEN VENUES
One of the easiest ways to Green your event is to use environmentally conscious venues — including both your event venue and the hotel in which you house attendees and staff. Many venues have already done the legwork required to offer Green alternatives to your guests, and to Green their own operating practices. Plus, these venues often have staff well versed in eco-friendly options.
When it comes to selecting hotels, always choose one within walking distance of your event venue, or one that is near existing mass-transportation stops, such as light rail, city buses, or subways. This way, you won’t have to incur the costs of group transportation — and Mother Nature won’t have to hack up additional carbon emissions.
Also look for ways the hotel can empower your attendees to go Green on their own. For example, make sure the hotel has a policy that lets guests save or reduce water by reusing linens, and that it provides recycling receptacles either in guest rooms or in locales throughout the hotel. These existing Green strategies don’t cost you a thing, but they can save millions of gallons of water and reduce the amount of waste in our landfills.
Many hotels will also implement simple Green procedures at no cost to your program. But you have to ask for them. For example, if there is a coffee/tea service in each room, ask the hotel to provide washable rather than disposable utensils for your guests. If the hotel offers a daily newspaper-delivery service to each room, ask about limiting that service to only those attendees who request it. Then, request that the leftover papers aren’t ordered from the publisher in the first place, or that they’re disposed of via a recycling program, rather than in attendees’ hotel garbage cans, which usually head straight to the landfill.
Before you select an event venue, inspect its environmental policy, which should outline its sustainability commitment. Look for Green alternatives regarding waste management (make sure it’s using recycling/compostable waste streams), energy management (for example, look for policies that limit consumption of air-conditioning or heating when loading-dock doors are open), air quality (search for anti-idling rules, electric or natural-gas forklifts, etc.), and procurement (ensure the venue has an internal commitment to going Green, as evidenced by using eco-friendly utensils, paper products, processes, etc.). Then try to select your venue by how well it meets both your meeting and environmental objectives.
If these environmental policies aren’t in place, ask venues to implement similar options for your event. For example, if the venue offers only disposable utensils, plates, and glassware, ask if it can use a compostable or biodegradable alternative to traditional plastics. If the venue wants your business, it should offer these minor material and procedural adjustments at little to no cost to you.
 Anah Corley,
vice president of business
development, Stenson Convention
Services, Pittsburgh
GO AGAINST THE GRAIN
Rather than hosting a slew of small events, consolidate them into a handful of regional events or a single national event. With myriad small events, you pay for multiple shipping costs to get your equipment and staging to and from the event, and staffers and even attendees might make multiple flights to each one. By sending your staff and your materials to a single, longer, and more prominent event, you not only save money, but with the decrease in travel and shipping, you also decrease your program’s carbon emissions.
Plus, given the time, space, and location limitations of small events — which are often held outside of traditional “convention” cities, in relatively small venues, and over the course of a few hours or a single day — you may have to restrict the amount of educational content, the quality of available speakers, your audience size, etc. But a few larger regional events or a single national one allows you to condense all of your efforts and money into a single, more prominent event. That gives you more buying power, allowing you to take advantage of large event spaces that are using the latest in Green technology, and to request that vendors use Green alternatives for the same price as more traditional options.
Along these same lines, what if your face-to-face event leveraged the power of face-to-screen marketing? Although nothing can replace face-to-face contact, virtual experiences can help supplement, enhance, and amplify your live events.
For example, let’s say you’re planning a four-day event. You could shorten it to three days and move one day’s worth of content to a virtual experience. Don’t think Webinar, think virtual meeting spaces that allow for full presentations, information downloads, and live chat and networking with and among attendees. You’ll cut staff-travel and venue-rental costs, and you’ll reduce the amount of materials and energy your program consumes as well as the waste it generates. Plus, you might be able to attract attendees to your virtual experience that otherwise wouldn’t have attended the live event.
 Daniel Diez,
manager of business
development, Jack Morton
Worldwide, New York
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