This past July, I spent a couple of weeks planning my five-year-old’s birthday party and volunteering with the Devonian Botanic Garden to help organize their new Green Festival… plus I was asked at a networking event how to go about greening a conference. (I think now that the person I was chatting with had confused me with the fabulous proprietress of TulaJane Eco Events. Now that I know about them, #1 on my list would be to call them if resources allow!) Anyway, thoughts of how to go about making any kind of event more sustainable were much on my mind, so I did what I always do and made a list. The filters to bring to bear on all the decisions come down to the old mantra of reduce, reuse, recycle, of course; but it also includes educate, go local, and give back. Here is a round-up of 20 Ways To Green Your Party or Event, which is compiled in part from the links provided further below.

1. Use renewable energy. In Alberta, Bullfrog Power offers this service.

2. Serving food? Use compostable disposables (plates, cups, cutlery) in corn-based PLA or Bambu… or better yet, rented reuseables and a dishwasher. Bulk drink dispensers (instead of individual bottles or cans). Locally sourced and/or organic food, heavy on vegetarian options, and chosen with sensitivity to allergy sufferers (are gluten free, dairy free, and nut/peanut-free options available?). Finger foods mean less utensil waste. Consider whether extra food can be donated to the local food bank.

3. Green the washrooms with biodegradable soaps and recycled paper towel and toilet paper.

4. Make sure any paper products are 100% postconsumer recycled. Avoid paper
use by reducing printouts, double-siding, and careful font choice to reduce waste.

5. Using whiteboards? Refillable, recyclable whiteboard markers mean less nonrecyclable junk.

6. Choose sustainable decor items, such as vintage or new ‘green’ furnishings, unscented soy or beeswax candles, banners made from vintage bedsheets (see photo below), pennants made from reclaimed vintage materials like those sold by Chop Chop Timber.

7. Arrange for carbon offsets for travel by attendees.

8. Make sure any janitorial staff are using green cleaning products.

9. Encourage attendees to participate in greening the event by reducing waste (BYO mug, notepaper, etc).

10. Go green with your giveaways, and try to choose durable items that will actually be used. For instance, promotional stuff could be mugs, tote bags, or something made locally. Wedding favors could be tree seedlings, perennial seed packs, donations to charity, or fair trade chocolates. Kids birthday goodies could be packaged in personalized tote bags or pencil cases instead of disposable bags, or could consist of one more-expensive, durable toy or craft supply item.

11. Set up recycling and compost stations, with adequate signage so that attendees know what goes where.

12. Provide community education opportunities (you know, like the not-for-profit booths at music festivals with a social conscience angle… think Lollapalooza and Lilith Fair).

13. Choose a venue with green cred to begin with: lots of natural light and low-flow bathroom fixtures, and proximity to public transit (and provide transit tickets… or, carpooling/bussing to a rural event), at minimum.

14. Decrease paper waste by arranging for online registration & payment, downloadable digital meeting materials, powerpoint slide shows, and no handouts.

15. Create online invitations using Facebook, evite.com, eply.com, gifttool.com, or sporg.com.

16. Consider using a park or other natural setting, with a few contingency tents. This idea gets bonus points for needing fewer decorations.

17. Use rented decor items. (You can apparently rent live plants from businesses that specialize in commercial properties.)

18. Build community using thank-you cards after the event, like the recycled cards from Caring Cards of Vancouver, or plantable cards from Winnipeg’s Botanical Paperworks.

19. Use local contacts wherever possible, and include local charities, to help build community. (For a party, consider doing a collection for charity; kids’ parties, some toy gifts to be donated to local shelter.)

20. If flowers are needed (think: weddings), choose simple arrangements of organically grown flowers. (The Growers Direct on 99th St here in Edmonton is advertising their eco-friendly flowers, so they may have managed to get in with the one or two Canadian organic flower distributors who until recently were ignoring parts east of Vancouver and west of Toronto.)

Links that might be helpful:

checklist at http://www.myams.org/sustainability/planning-a-green-event

blog at http://www.talenevents.ca/green-event-planning-toronto.html

articles at http://ecogatherings.com/a-greenevent.php, http://www.amuseconsulting.ca/event-planning-vancouver-tips.html

lots more links at http://www.ecospeakers.com/foreventmgrs/greenevents/index.html

green kids’ birthday party ideas at:

• http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/g-word/gword-ep105b-bday-party.html,
• http://ecofabulous.blogs.com/ecofabulous/2007/05/party_on.html
• http://www.babyearth.com/ecoblog/2008/05/eco-friendly-alternatives-to-the-traditional-goodie-bag.html
• http://notquitecrunchyparent.blogspot.com/2008/03/eco-birthday-goodie-bags.html

…I should add that I had some success with doing a green birthday for my daughter. This year I was focussed on the ubiquitous goody bags full of candy and inexpensive toys; for her birthday celebration at school in June, each of the kids got a durable-but-inexpensive box-shaped plastic pencil case personalized using letter stickers with their names, with some allergy-safe candy, sturdy-looking sunglasses (that turned out to be not so sturdy, dang it), and some good-quality markers for colouring inside. For her birthday party proper, we chose small natural-cotton tote bags and decorated them with iron-ons and fabric markers. Next time I’d use a bigger tote, as these are really too small to hold much of anything; I like the idea of making them myself a la the Singlet Bag on Craftster or the ingenious Morsbags project. I also experimented with the Japanese fabric giftwrapping methods of Furoshiki, with some success (tying the cloth to bamboo handles to make a purse was her favorite). My son’s birthday will be much greener thanks to what I’ve learned from my first try, and thanks to the natural beeswax birthday candles and reuseable adorable recycled-fabric pennants I found at Chop Chop Timber. I also love the reuseable vintage-style party goods (Pin The Tail On The Donkey! yay!) at Tin Parade, and Happy Green Earth and Little Star Creative Parties have great sustainable goody-bag gifts.

Update: Lisa Borden has a great article up at Scribd, originally printed in tonic (a Toronto area magazine), on this same topic. Go check it out!

Tags: checklist, event planning, going green, how-to, how-to tips

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 10:12 pm and is filed under Green Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.