or nearly 20 years, The North Face had presented its wilderness wear during the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market expo in private meeting rooms off the show floor. But for the 2011 convention in Salt Lake City, the company wanted to show the thousands of eco-conscious attendees it was as savvy about Green exhibiting as it was smart about the great outdoors.

Assisted by Transformit Inc. of Gorham, ME, The North Face created a 6,000-square-foot exhibit bordered by six 10- to 25-foot-high tent-like fabric structures shaded in the company's signature yellow-orange hue. Overhead, 12 fabric "clouds" suspended from a truss, and varying in diameter from 6 to 18 feet, suggested Alpine altitudes, while fixtures placed on the floor illuminated the mock clouds with cascading patterns of blue and white lights.

Positioned near the main entrance was the Summit Bar. Shaped like the stylized "S" logo from the company's elite Summit Series collection, the bar's top was made from recycled paper fused with a resin siphoned from cashew shells. Here, visitors rested before they attended events in the nearby Half Dome Theater. Inside the 30-by-30-foot room, lined with Transformit's sound-absorbing PolySoft fabric, two staffers conducted live presentations about the company's products, while The North Face played videos on a 12-by-4.5-foot projection screen depicting athletes actually using the gear on display.

Afterward, visitors hiked to any of four product areas, marked by 14-foot-high displays made from stainless-steel tubing and reclaimed barn wood. When the guests finished, they could trek to any of four private meeting rooms named for celebrated summits, such as Kilimanjaro and Everest. With the booth's recycled materials and lightweight fabric resulting in a carbon footprint measuring roughly one-third of what traditional booths of equal size leave, The North Face showed that when it came to being Green, it was truly the king of the mountain.e