In the coming year, I want to share more of the knowledge I’ve gained from my experiences working on sustainable events.
I’m kicking things off a little early and starting a new series I’m calling Sustainable Event Case Studies.
In this series I’ll walk through events I’ve worked on and share the major things I learned from the process.
Today I’m revisiting my first major sustainable event: Indy VegFest 2017.
Indy VegFest is a vegan food and lifestyle expo, and 2017 was its inaugural year. I had worked on a few smaller events before VegFest 2017, but this was my first all-day event, my first festival, and my first event with thousands (as opposed to dozens) of attendees.
I was working full-time at my old “day job,” so I worked on VegFest in my spare time. I coordinated with the festival’s organizers and vendors and created a plan to capture, separate, and measure all of the waste generated by the event, keeping as much out of the landfill as possible. My first waste diversion program!
When the big day arrived, I showed up at the venue feeling as prepared as I could. My setup was straightforward: assemble and place 10 waste stations around the venue, then briefly touch base with each food vendor, before the event began at 11:00 a.m.
I quickly realized that there was a major flaw in my plan. I had requested dedicated waste diversion volunteers for during the event and post-event cleanup, but I didn’t have any dedicated volunteers for setup. And now that I was in the venue, I realized just how much time it took to walk from one end to the other, carrying one… waste… bin… at a… time…
This is obviously the error of an inexperienced baby event professional. But it was a huge lesson for me!
When I started my business, I thought of it as pretty much a one-woman enterprise. But through experiences like VegFest, I learned how imperative it is for zero waste efforts to be supported by a team, all the way from setup to teardown.
Thankfully, VegFest volunteers came to my aid and we finished setting up the waste stations close to the event start time. Ultimately 4,500 attendees came through the doors, and the waste diversion program kept 80% of the event’s waste out of the landfill via either recycling or composting.
At all of my events since, working with a team has become a vital part of my process, and one of the most enjoyable too.
Learn from my mistake: don’t attempt to take on major green programs as a solo eco-warrior. You need support!
Lesson Learned
A waste diversion program for a large event can’t be executed by just one person. You need multiple people to help with setup, monitoring, measurement, and teardown.
Have you ever taken on an ambitious task for one of your events, only to find you couldn’t handle it solo? Leave a comment below and tell me about it so I don’t feel like such a dope!
No staff to dedicate to green programs? Let my team and I handle all aspects of sustainably managing waste at your next event, from start to finish. Learn more >>