I have two confessions to make. First, I’m a secret event judger.
You probably already suspected this about me, and yes, it’s true. When I’m an attendee at a conference or banquet, I spend my downtime silently evaluating how sustainable the event is. (Downtime = When I’m not low-key stalking the servers with the passed hors d’oeuvres.)
I keep my eyes open for things like recycling bins, compost collection, and single-use plastic dishware.
But what I pay the most attention to are things that the organizers obviously spent a lot of money on and that will most likely be thrown away as soon as the event is over.
Some examples I see frequently are:
- Excessive quantities of food still sitting out when everyone is done eating
- Large banners that are too specific to use for another event
- Custom-fabricated items designed to reinforce an arbitrary theme (“this year, everything is yellow!”)
These examples are especially frustrating to me because they not only cause unnecessary waste, but they take up event budget that planners could easily put to better use.
This leads to my second confession: I was part of the problem for a long time.
Before I became a sustainability consultant, I was a graphic designer for events. And when my boss told me to redesign all of our event materials with a new theme each year, I didn’t see it as wasteful — I saw it as my most fun project of the year.
It took a few years of redesigning for these made-up themes (truly, “yellow” was one of our themes once) for me to see the amount of money we were spending on reordering signs and promotional items, not to mention the physical waste we were accumulating from leftover materials. This realization was the light-bulb moment that ultimately led to me creating the business I lead today.
What’s my point here? Like my confessions, I have two.
My first point is that even if you consider yourself a waste-conscious person, that value may not be making it through to your professional work. I know because I was that person, and it took years for the impact of what I was doing to finally click. You’re not a bad person if you’ve never looked at your work through that lens before.
My second point is that unless you’re already in the habit of going over your event purchases with a fine-toothed comb, you probably have waste-related cost savings in your budget you didn’t even know about.
A question I get asked a lot is, how much money can we save with a green event?
The short answer is that it’s different for every event. Your existing budgeting and purchasing practices, plus your event’s definition of success, all play into your potential for savings.
To give planners a customized, actionable answer to that question, I’ve launched a new service called the Cost-Saving Waste Assessment.
In the assessment, I help planners identify cost savings in some of the most common areas of event waste:
- Food & beverage
- Printing
- Promotional items
And because some planners are already the fine-toothed-comb type, I’m offering this service with a no-risk guarantee. If your cost savings don’t exceed your investment in the assessment, we’ll refund the entire amount.
Learn more about the Cost-Saving Waste Assessment >>
Do you have an experience like mine, where you were accidentally wasteful for years without realizing it? Have you already saved significantly by modifying part of your event? Share your tips with others by leaving a comment below!