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Building a Green Event or Meeting Show 2

Mike and Johanna Walsh talk about green events.  Please email any questions to Meetingspodcast@gmail.com. or leave a comment below.

Here are the show transcripts:

Mike McAllen:     Welcome back to Meetings Podcast. This is Mike McAllen with Grass Shack Events and Media and today we have another Green podcast. We have Johanna Walsh on the phone. Hi Johanna.
Johanna Walsh:     Hello Mike. How are you?

Mike McAllen:    I am good. I’m good. You are with Twirl Management, correct?

Johanna Walsh:     Yes, yes. I’m an eco-event planner with Twirl Management.

Mike McAllen:     Right. Just to people who don’t remember from the last wonderful podcast we did and let’s see. What’s new? What’s new with you? Tell me what’s new.

Johanna Walsh:     Let’s see. Well, since we last talked, both you and I got a behind the scenes tour of Oracle’s 40,000-person conference called OpenWorld that they do in downtown San Francisco which is pretty incredible as for people who are in San Francisco. It basically shuts down a good few block of medias in the downtown area for this conference and the last few years, they’ve been enacting green initiatives to really reduce both their carbon imprint, reduce the amount of waste bins [Phonetic] [0:01:13] created at their event and also do a lot of eco-friendly procurement policy so that the stuff – the items they’re bringing in are also sourced either locally or organically or just all around very thoughtful process in the whole event structure and for 40,000 people, that’s quite the feat. So …

Mike McAllen:    Yes, yes and I guess the big one is the water bottles is what I heard. I heard that. So it’s just a holy moly, it’s a lot of money with – they’d eliminated the water bottles.

Johanna Walsh:     $1.4 million I think.

Mike McAllen:     Yes. Is that amazing?

Johanna Walsh:    $1.4 million by taking out water bottles away from your event, that just creates so much money.

Mike McAllen:     Yes and so much better for the environment too. That’s just so great.

Johanna Walsh:     Yes and so they had drink stations. They did make drink stations set up throughout and I think they were giving water bottles away as gifts but – and they also had the compostable cups set up at each drink station so that way it’s the cup did get thrown away and it was going into the compost waste stream.

Mike McAllen:     Right and then they used tap water too which was …

Johanna Walsh:     Yes.

Mike McAllen:     … because the water is fine. The water is fine around there.

Johanna Walsh:     Well yes, San Francisco, New York, and a couple of big cities have really great tap water. So …

Mike McAllen:     Yes. I know we do in Oakland here too.

Johanna Walsh:     Oh surely but …

Mike McAllen:     And of course it was Paul Salinger, our buddy Paul …

Johanna Walsh:     Yes.

Mike McAllen:     … who took us on this tour which was very nice. He’s a good egg and actually I’ve worked that event for years and years and years, my old company that – Paul and I used to work at the In-Vision Communications who does the production years ago and he moved over to Oracle but he was the creative director I guess in Vision and it was fun for me to go up there because ever since leaving the Vision when I started my own company, I haven’t had the best relationship with the Vision. I mean a lot of people there but you know how that is when you leave a company and start your own company doing the same thing. So it was really interesting to me to walk in and the owner of the Vision was there and then another guy, Geoffrey [Phonetic] [0:03:25] who works for Kenwood, you know Geoff.

Johanna Walsh:     Yes.

Mike McAllen:     He was also there and he used to be the account manager now, he works for Kenwood but he was the account manager on that, on Oracle OpenWorld every year. So it was kind of – for me, it was an even bigger thing like holy moly – like I didn’t know they were all going to be there. So …

Johanna Walsh:     This is awkward.

Mike McAllen:    … yes. It wasn’t at all because it’s been too long for all of us. So it was all very fun but the Paul going through the whole thing which is just amazing to me. From the trade show floor to just everything, you know, the event and the program basically, they did a whole – cut that back completely and used all you know, not toxic inks and that was an amazing thing. Do you remember what he said about that?

Johanna Walsh:     Yes. So they did this trade off because I guess they had used – they had done like you know, a couple of thousand page program with Max and detailed information regarding the – like people there exhibiting plus attendees and speakers and what they ended up do – because they then wanted to go over to post-consumer waste recycled paper and soy-based inks depreciate but the cost skyrocketed pretty highly especially a couple of years ago when these things are a little bit more expensive than they are today. So what they ended up doing is they had reduced the size of the block to like you know, like a hundred or so pages.

So not only did they cut out – so they cut out so much paper that they were using per piece and then the reduction in the size allowed them to upgrade to the soy-based inks and the recycled paper content. So it was just really a smart decision all around but you know, it kind of shows that with the green events and going green that you can – you should utilize the trade off that not, you know, you can’t really – it won’t necessarily cost less or cost more but it’s really the trade off that you should highlight and that’s a perfect example of doing that. So you actually get a better product at the end of the day too.

Mike McAllen:     Right, right. It is amazing and also in the trade show floor, it’s completely paperless there where you know, you’ve been to those trade show floors before, you know, most trade show floors everything is done with – in triple kit and they have all these papers they’re signing. You know, they did – he was telling us that they did everything paperless which is a big savings.

Johanna Walsh:     Yes. What – and you know, it probably makes things so much easier for editing and for changes, you know, I can’t think of the numerous times where something gets misprinted and you’re stuck with 4,000 copies of it.

Mike McAllen:     Oh yes.

Johanna Walsh:     And because – and it’s terrible and because you either make a decision to junk it or you don’t have to use it and highlight that there’s a mistake where – when things are digital, you just can – you can solve that problem within 5 minutes really.

Mike McAllen:     Right, right. And then they also had the signage in there. They were using the signage and they talked a little bit about the signage they were using was recycled.

Johanna Walsh:     Yes and who’s the company? Was it Olympia Staging?

Mike McAllen:     Yes, it was something like that. Yes.

Johanna Walsh:     I think – hold on. I’ve got it in my notes but they were the ones that – yes, they had these signs without years on them. So it was just like big or closed signs …

Mike McAllen:     Right and they could reuse it too.

Johanna Walsh:     … which is great and Champion made – was the one who draw their signage and design and they made these great cardboard signs.

Mike McAllen:     Right.

Johanna Walsh:     Do you see those?

Mike McAllen:     Yes.

Johanna Walsh:     They were corrugated cardboard signs. So, that’s normal, no difference.

Mike McAllen:     Yes. No, they look great and the whole event itself, it’s amazing that they’re looking into every little kind of nook and cranny that – where they could cut back, you know, even Moscone itself was doing a lot of things. He was trying to use organic foods and where they use non-toxic cleaning fluids and stuff possibly and so …

Johanna Walsh:     And all of their packaging for lunches and such are all compostable.

Mike McAllen:     Right, right. And that was interesting too to go down and actually talk – how the chef talked to us in the, you know, he said he was trying his best to do – to get local food but you know, sometimes he says we don’t grow like bananas, I remember him saying. We don’t grow bananas around here. So …

Johanna Walsh:     Well you know, he also said you know, you can’t buy 10,000 pieces of certain kinds of meat or else you just wipe out the entire supplies within the area by one day on an Oracle conference.

Mike McAllen:     It’s true, huh?

Johanna Walsh:     Yes and to think it’s 10,000 people you’re trying to feed. But yes, Moscone was actually really impressive. They’re really thinking about how to best, you know, since they’re having to sort all of these different layers and get them properly recycled. They have a great system it seems like to do that as officially as possible. The one thing – I don’t know if you came back, she showed this gigantic wood pounder …

Mike McAllen:    Yes, yes.

Johanna Walsh:     … that they put the palettes in and it crushes the bejeezus out of them.

Mike McAllen:     Right, right. Yes, that was cool.

Johanna Walsh:     Yes.

Mike McAllen:     Well what was it called because it had a crazy name. It’s like the crusher or something. It had a cool name.

Johanna Walsh:     Let me see. Did I have it written down? I just wrote that it was a [Indiscernible] [0:09:13] to reduce square footage of green waste for efficient hauling. So that way, they would never get too full and that they can keep things in and out and she actually rent it for us which is pretty cool. It was a pretty big machine.

Mike McAllen:     Oh I didn’t see it running. Did you go back and do that?

Johanna Walsh:     Yes. Yes a couple of us ladies were like hey, can you turn it on and she was like oh yes.

Mike McAllen:     That’s great.

Johanna Walsh:     Yes.

Mike McAllen:     It can also – and also what was cool too is that they said at the chef I remember too saying that they dropped off those boxes and things with the food in them and then they put the boxes back out and they come back around and pick up the boxes and they reused the boxes.

Johanna Walsh:     Oh that’s right with the food. So they had these – it’s like the crates that you constantly – you see them with glassware for catering companies but – so yes, that’s what these gigantic stackable crates like a milk crate but you know, a little bit different and that’s what the food gets delivered in and then it goes back out the companies who pick up those crates and then these would get redelivered in the next time. It’s fantastic.

Mike McAllen:    Yes, yes. Well they’re really – I mean setting the bar on doing this kind of stuff. It’s interesting and I kind of push it on my own clients sometimes to talk about it and they don’t, you know, it’s too much of a hassle but as you can see what they’re doing here, you know, working with Moscone too is they’re really cutting back on – they’re actually saving money in the event, you know, and side saving the world, they’re saving money in a lot of these.

Johanna Walsh:    Yes.

Mike McAllen:    A lot of [Crosstalk] [0:10:48] …

Johanna Walsh:    And I’m curious how much if it’s guaranteed that they’re really not going to take that business outside of Moscone too because Moscone is really push forward.

Mike McAllen:    Well he said – yes and they said – he said at the end there that they had – they don’t have a signed contract but they’ve had like a handshake contract with them like 120 years or something to do with it.

Johanna Walsh:    Also it’s good for Moscone [Crosstalk] [0:11:12].

Mike McAllen:    Yes, yes. Well I think it’s a lot – all of this has a lot to do with Paul I think really pushing it and Jodie Morrison too. I think the two of them.

Johanna Walsh:    Yes.

Mike McAllen:    And you need that from your clients or your companies to really be – say hey, let’s do it and it’s such a great PR too.

Johanna Walsh:    Yes. They get like an extra 50 pieces of PR a year. I think from just from the green and the event alone.

Mike McAllen:    Wow. Very interesting.

Johanna Walsh:    Yes.

Mike McAllen:    Do you know – do they do the same kind of thing for the big sales force conference that comes through?

Johanna Walsh:    I don’t know. I don’t know who has that anymore. I know that Woodberry had that for a long time but I don’t …

Mike McAllen:    But Dreamforce, isn’t that the name of it? Dreamforce?

Johanna Walsh:    Yes. To be honest, Dreamforce was – when I was a travel director, I worked with the first Dreamforce and that was part of my inspiration, one of them like many facets of how …

Mike McAllen:    Oh really?

Johanna Walsh:    … wasteful conferences can be and how much work there was available to try to green the hospitality industry. So I don’t think they’ve always – at least Dreamforce was an originally – I haven’t been of course in years but …

Mike McAllen:    Yes. Well they guy, Mark Bennioff [Phonetic] [0:12:34] who …

Johanna Walsh:    He’s a big eco. He actually says …

Mike McAllen:    Yes, he’s an eco, he’s a Buddhist and I actually went to high school with him which is kind of a strange sideline but – both of them …

Johanna Walsh:    You’re always related to have some weird things, you know, with everyone.

Mike McAllen:    Well he was with Oracle when I was working in like Oracle World and you know, him and Paul are big buddies and also …

Johanna Walsh:    Yes.

Mike McAllen:    … you know, during that time you know, it was weird to see him at these things when I was running around being the production assistant and he was on stage, you know, talking about you know, Oracle.

Johanna Walsh:    Yes.

Mike McAllen:    It was a strange time in my life.

Johanna Walsh:     Oh sure. It’s a phase that happened to you.

Mike McAllen:    Then his parents and my parents were friends and stuff so it was just kind of like it was just you know, weird kind of situation when they would come visit and I’d be hanging up some banners somewhere and then he’d be you know, kind of be in the CEO – well not CEO but he was you know, a big executive there and his parents are waving at me, hey hi.

Johanna Walsh:    You’re like yes hi.

Mike McAllen:    And they’d be like Mark, have you seen Mike’s over here and he’d do like yes, hi Mike. Good times. Good times, yes.

Johanna Walsh:    Yes.

Mike McAllen:    Yes. But anyway, so it was a really good – and they have a study on – they have link on the Oracle. People are more interested in learning more about it on Oracle. They have a green event page on their …

Johanna Walsh:    Oh great.

Mike McAllen:    … that you can go look at and they have a – they do a study each year on how they can improve it. It’s what Paul had said which I think is very interesting.

Johanna Walsh:    And that’s actually really key. That’s really a key component to I think making any substantial change in any program but especially within any of the events is to basically audit yourself each time …

Mike McAllen:    Right.

Johanna Walsh:    … because they’re, you know and it’s okay if some things don’t come through as well but at least it’s a process of tracking them which is not something that you usually do after an event is do an audit on some scale.

Mike McAllen:    Yes and they’re doing it all the way down to the food like how far away the lettuce had been driven to the event and you know, really digging down and having each person, you know, each facet of the event.

Johanna Walsh:    Oh yes.

Mike McAllen:    It’s amazing. I know too talking on the production side of it, I was amazed kind of you know, nowadays when you, you know, we went on stage and we were walking around and looking, I was looking at the lights above the stage and the changes that have made in the last couple of years about even like you know, using LED and just the different types of lighting. It’s just amazing how much less there is up there, you know, how much better the things are and they reuse the stage every year which makes it actually better, you know, it’s more effective, cheaper to do this stuff if you use the same kind of staging too each time.

Johanna Walsh:    Sure. Yes, yes.

Mike McAllen:    And they’re using – I don’t remember what that screens – not the screens themselves but the whole elements of the stage were all, you know, reusable things that they’re using each year which is you know, it’s a big cost saver because a lot of times you know, we – I know for years and years building the stage and when it’s done, it’s in a heap in the back, you know.

Johanna Walsh:    Oh gosh. Ouch! Really?

Mike McAllen:    You know – yes, a lot of wood and you know, you’re building – actually building stage elements and stuff. It’s a lot of stuff goes into this. So if they can recreate it each year and just work on the, you know, the media and the lighting and you know, you can do so much more each year differently. You don’t need to build stuff. You can you know, use this new media and use media to deal with what you’re wanting to get across to your audiences. So it’s kind of cool.

Johanna Walsh:    Well the main area did look really sleek because we were in there while they were testing the Larry Elson [Phonetic] [0:16:33] introduction and it was pretty sleek. So I mean you couldn’t – nothing was – no quality was diminished by any of these choices.

Mike McAllen:    Oh yes, yes. I know. Well they – and their vision is really good at what they do and plus I think they work with video applications to do the audiovisual in there and they’re a really good company. They just do really high-end, very cool stuff so between the two of them, they put together some sleek stuff but anyway, so that was a great trip. I really enjoyed myself going over there.

Johanna Walsh:    Yes.

Mike McAllen:    Even with all the tension when it started.

Johanna Walsh:    Well of course it’s pouring me and I went into a meeting over at SPUR for our GMIC event that was happening a few weeks later and just thought soaked to the bone.

Mike McAllen:    Oh no.

Johanna Walsh:    This is really two blocks away from each other and I was completely soaked at some point but …

Mike McAllen:    Oh no.

Johanna Walsh:    … I think that leads us to talking about the GMIC event we had at the 22nd of October …

Mike McAllen:     Yes.

Johanna Walsh:    … which was at the SPUR Urban Center which SPUR is yet the whole acronym but it’s basically a thin take revolving around eco-friendly urban planning and how to promote [Indiscernible] [0:18:01] and how to have things built for transportation and parks and bike ways and eco-friendly buildings. So it’s an interesting sync thing [Phonetic] [0:18:12] and they have – they’ve built a new kind of urban center/museum down on Mission the 23rd and in Montgomery and in downtown San Francisco. So we held our inaugural GMIC’s Northern California event there which was great and so we had a talk by one of the executive directors of the organizations, you can talk about SPUR’s mission and what they’re doing and how to link that toward hospitality in terms of urban planning which is really applicable to our group and then Beverly Alkire of Green Business Consultants and Paul Salinger of Oracle conducted a class in how to establish your – what is it? It’s not benchmarks but how to make a road map to greening your event or greening your company – you know, event programs offering into – and they showed of course how – then how to log the results from the Oracle event to kind of show off from the – during his presentation which is great and everyone loved presentations.

They did this great icebreaker and then when I ask you what yours is – was they went in the room and everyone had to admit what their non-green act was they do at home. Like what their personal thing where they’re not green in this action at all, you know, like for instance, they’re with people who commute. They drive you know, an hour each way to work or somebody said that they over-recycle and they just know everything in the recycling bin just because they assume it’s going to get assorted because they’re not sure instead of throwing it in the trash or there was a couple of people who said they really love to travel on vacation and they go to you know, far off places and that’s you know, to go surfing or go hiking or to do, you know, so what’s the thing that you do that is like it’s your – it’s kind of like your non-green action.

Mike McAllen:    I think I have two and they both revolve around water. I think that I take two long showers because I spend – to just stand there forever and I think I should cut my shower use down. We do have a hot tub. I could sit in that if I wanted to just sit in the warm water and then the other thing is I flush the cat poop down the toilet.

Johanna Walsh:    You have this cat say go in the toilet?

Mike McAllen:    No, no. I have the cat – we don’t use our bathtub so we have our cat litter box thing in the thing …

Johanna Walsh:    Oh okay.

Mike McAllen:    …  and so I just throw it into the toilet and flush it down. It is poop. I thought that’s okay but then how much water am I using. I’ve been feeling very guilty about that. So those are my two. What was yours?

Johanna Walsh:    Mine revolved around my shopping habit and that I don’t always buy local, a clothing shopping habit.

Mike McAllen:    Oh wow. Yes. I think that we’ve been talking about too is my wife and I choose a vegetarian for a long time and I think this year, I mean I love to eat food but I’m thinking I want to try and go veggie this year. I’m going to try and do it for a year which is a huge, huge thing for me.

Johanna Walsh:    Wow.

Mike McAllen:    … because I like everything.

Johanna Walsh:    Yes.

Mike McAllen:    You know, I’m a huge man. I need to eat.

Johanna Walsh:    You need to keep …

Mike McAllen:    So the plans for the world should be worried about – I’m just thinking that’s going to be my thing this year and I always said it out there. So I’m probably going to have to do it now.

Johanna Walsh:    Oh everyone knows now. The – I mean me unless you’re buying from you know, one of these great local farms we have that you know, grass bed and all that, I mean it’s just the methane and the treatment [Indiscernible] [0:22:13] and all of that, it’s just terrible to the environment.

Mike McAllen:    It is. It is. So that’s going to be my – then maybe I won’t feel bad as flushing the poop down.

Johanna Walsh:    Yes. That would be your trade-off. Even a lot of meat might be a decent trade-off, you know. Who knows?

Mike McAllen:    Okay. So what was the last thing we were going to talk a little bit or do you want to talk more about the SPUR event or …

Johanna Walsh:    No, it was a really great event. We have good attendance, usually fun. Melons Catering did a great appetizer display and set up. They had some of my favorite local cheeses but is a very fast way to my heart and then we had a wine company who I feel really bad because I can’t remember their names right now, bringing two wineries that poured some really lovely local wines. It was [Indiscernible] [0:23:14].

Mike McAllen:    So it’s fun.

Johanna Walsh:    Yes. So it was great.

Mike McAllen:    And lots of wine. That’s a thing with the meat. I think I can get rid of the meat, I just couldn’t get rid of the booze. I’m just too Irish I think.

Johanna Walsh:    And there’s a person living in the bay area I guess.

Mike McAllen:    Right, exactly. So actually let’s put links on the website to the catering company and to the – what else did we talk about? The Olympia or was that the Olympia …

Johanna Walsh:    Yes [Crosstalk] [0:23:42] …

Mike McAllen:    … who did the signs?

Johanna Walsh:    … yes.

Mike McAllen:    And then this – maybe we can get the other for the wineries that were not …

Johanna Walsh:    No, it’s somewhere in my inbox which I don’t – it’s in my computer for the rest of the weekend but I’ll get that to you.

Mike McAllen:    Great and then so do you want to give some tips on holiday events?

Johanna Walsh:    Sure. You know for basics, you know from all different gamut, you know, holiday season is a [Indiscernible] [0:24:08] I know that people are either doing holiday parties at home, you know, with family and friends and/or their company parties. So in terms of the home party, just a couple tips that I usually love to share is one of my favorites is that if you’re going to go to Whole Foods or any of these kind of grocery deli counters to have platters made, you know, which is really common. I know I will go to Deliceo [Phonetic] [0:24:38] or to something like that and get a lot of their premium stuff just for time and the food is really good but a really great thing to do is actually just bring your own platters so that you are presenting your dish in a really nice platter but you’re also not carrying around like you know you get these meat platters and they’re – and here’s like huge plastic containers and it’s been wrapped and all of this but if you bring your own container, it looks nicer for your delivery and it saves a lot of wastes.

Mike McAllen:    I think I’m going to end up doing that anyway. You’re going to move it off on your own.

Johanna Walsh:    Exactly.

Mike McAllen:    So I’ll have them do it arrange it on there nicely.

Johanna Walsh:    Exactly and so you’re not double touching the food also which is you know, for hygienic reasons better with all these weird bugs running around [Indiscernible] [0:25:27].

Mike McAllen:    All right, right.

Johanna Walsh:    In terms of your holiday party for like if you have a work function, I think the best step is to really think about purchasing things in bulk. You know, whether you’re using a planner or just planning something internally. I know it sounds really funny but a keg is actually a huge way to reduce wastes in your company party and you can even do a half keg or quarter kegs really simply and there’s great local beers but it’s a huge way to cut back on you know, cans and bottles and you could pump it and serve it in nice pitchers so it doesn’t have to fill the you know, standing on a keg but you know when you talk about reducing wastes, the number one thing is to go – one of the big things is to go to bulk and bulk purchasing reduces your cost of 30% sometimes from buying things in smaller containers. So that’s kind of a nice tip whether it’s your home party or company party to really think about, what containers your stuff is coming in.

Mike McAllen:    Very cool, very cool.

Johanna Walsh:    So those are my little holiday …

Mike McAllen:    Great holiday tips.

Johanna Walsh:    Thanks.

Mike McAllen:    Fantastic. Okay well, I guess that’s pretty good. We did a good weekly show I think.

Johanna Walsh:    Great. Awesome. Perfect.

Mike McAllen:    And I will talk to you again next month.

Johanna Walsh:    Sounds good.

Mike McAllen:    Which should be fun.

Johanna Walsh:    Sounds [Crosstalk] [0:26:51] probably sooner than that but not for everyone.

Mike McAllen:    Yes, not for everyone else to hear us talking but Johanna, thank you once again from Twirl Management.

Johanna Walsh:    Great. Thank you so much, Mike. This has been fantastic again.

Mike McAllen:    Yes and very fun and so I will see you next time.

Johanna Walsh:    Great. So bye everyone.

Mike McAllen:    Bye-bye.