Arguably the two highest-profile conventions this year were the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, held in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Denver, respectively. In addition to the security concerns, hoards of VIPs, and media scrutiny, the biggest difference between these conventions and your average behemoth of a meeting is that both Democrats and Republicans wanted to hold the "greenest" events possible.
But offer congratulations on having survived, and the response from the host property is: "We get that a lot, but we're a convention hotel; that's what we do for a living. It was a high-profile event and there was a lot of uniqueness to it, but much of it is what we do every day," says Randy Thompson, general manager of the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis, the headquarters hotel for the Republican National Convention, held September 1-4.
Politicians on Missions
In Denver, "The mission for [the DNC] was to make this the greenest convention in history. For us, it was about, 'What can we do that is green and will leave a lasting legacy?'" explains Rachel Benedick, associate vice president of convention sales for the Denver Metro CVB.
The CVB facilitated green business workshops with experts from the Environmental Protection Agency and the local community, organizing workshops for five different groups: restaurants, hotels, meeting and event planners, venues, and transportation providers. Benedick says they were "a huge success," and that they will continue as a legacy project.
A similar program, GreenGatherings, was started in the Twin Cities to raise awareness, help protect natural resources in the area, assist groups in planning low-impact events, and work with local businesses interested in becoming more environmentally friendly.
Both convention destinations offered 1,000 bicycles to delegates and visitors through a partnership between Boulder, CO-based Bikes Belong and Louisville, KY-based health benefits company, Humana. Bikes and helmets were made available for free at seven locations in each city and seemed to be well received. According to Bikes Belong, bike riders from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 37 countries took 7,523 rides, covered 41,724 miles, and reduced their carbon footprint by 14.6 metric tons. Bicycle racks and 70 bikes were left in each city to encourage an extension of the project.
Both cities also worked with Xcel Energy Inc. to limit their use of traditional energy. Among other initiatives, the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis and the headquarters hotel for the Democratic National Convention held August 25-28, the Hyatt Regency Denver, used only wind power from Xcel for the duration of the convention. Thompson and his counterpart in Denver, General Manager John Schafer, agree that using wind power is seamless on the venue's end, although Schafer notes that there can be an additional cost.
At the Hyatt Regency Denver, where guests included Howard Dean, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Madeleine Albright, and personnel from NBC and ABC, materials on the green initiatives were provided to each guest by the nonpartisan convention host committee.
To reduce paper waste at the Hyatt during the Republican convention, information was not delivered daily to each guest room, but made available in the lobby, both to decrease upfront paper use and to ensure that leftovers were quickly and easily recycled. Thompson says the move was well received by guests, although he was reluctant to specify who his guests were.
"We had the Republican National Committee leadership here and a number of extremely high-priority, high-profile, security-conscious individuals, and I hesitate to disclose their names," says Thompson, adding that his property did not host the suddenly famous vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, but did have the delegations from Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, and Vermont as well as attendees from the CBS news contingent.
Change We Can Believe In
James Kratofil, the Hyatt Regency Denver's director of food and beverage, gave a rundown of how the convention week compared to a normal week in which the hotel is fully booked. During the Democratic convention, the hotel used 268,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity versus 340,000 hours during a normal week, and used 700,000 gallons of water compared to 900,000 normally, which he attributes in part to the fact that most guests were away from the rooms during the day at convention activities. The hotel also went through 46,000 pounds of room linen versus a typical 62,000 pounds, based largely on the fact that the hotel typically changes out linens on day four of a guest's stay even if they have opted to reuse their sheets and towels, but many convention guests elected not to have their sheets changed at all during the week-long convention.
Other initiatives include an increase in locally sourced food and the use of food containers produced by a company in Boulder that are biodegradable or made of at least 30 percent post-consumer recycled material. Schafer adds that some projects have proven to be cost saving"You can sell a couple of tons of cardboard versus putting it in a landfill," he says. "I think for us there was a realization that a lot of these things you can do pretty easily, without much impact on cost, and sometimes save some money." He also notes that much has changed in the past few years, and there are more resources available than ever before.
City-wide, projects included the planting of trees, solar energy installations, water stations throughout the city to allow guests to refill water bottles, recycling bins along the 16th Street Mall, and the use of eco-friendly room keys made from birch, supplied by Boulder-based Sustainable Cards LLC and used at all convention hotels. The city was considered fairly green long before the Democrats came to town and the Colorado Convention Center even hired a sustainability director, Lindsay Smith, in January. According to Benedick, one of the legacy projects from the Democratic convention is the Green Meetings & Events page on the CVB's website, which links to the Denver Event CO2e Emissions Calculation Tool. The calculator asks a series of questions about your event, projected energy consumption, waste, and travel by attendees, suppliers, and organizers, then allows planners to purchase carbon offsets if they so choose. For the convention, delegates and visitors were encouraged to purchase offsets to reduce the impact of their travel to Denver.
And, in perhaps the oddest sounding of all green initiatives, the Molson Coors Brewing Company donated fuel for all of the General Motors flex-fuel vehicles used during the conventionthe fuel, called E85, is primarily ethanol based and is made from waste beer. That's right, beer. Waste beer is what the brewer considers below quality standards or what is spilled during the packaging process. Not only is the ethanol fuel clean-burning, but it also helps Coors save on its own volatile organic compound emissions.
Country First
Back in Minnesota, in addition to the usual suspectstwo-sided printing, recycling bins for paper, cans, and bottles, and office climate controlthe Minneapolis-St. Paul Convention Office Administration (COA) incorporated power strips for electronic equipment that were turned off after hours to reduce energy use, worked out of a U.S. EPA-designated Energy Star office building, and noted that 80 percent of employees live within walking distance of the office or use public transportation for their commute.
And it didn't end there. Recycled carpeting was installed at the convention site, sitting on carpet padding made of 100 percent recycled foam material. The convention used recycled graphics printing machine ink cartridges, as well as banner materials with water-based components that do not contain "extractable heavy metals or carcinogenic and allergenic colorants." All housing confirmations, housing reports to the COA, and reservations were handled electronically to avoid paper waste. Welcome kits for delegates were available digitally instead of printed and mailed, and a map for attendees was printed on recycled paper. All convention vehicles were hybrid or flex-fuel and the "More to Minnesota GOParty Card," which looks like a credit card and drives traffic to local businesses by offering incentives and price breaks, was made from corn.
Recycling was also a big part of the Republican National Convention. Waste Management Inc. and Coca-Cola Recycling LLC were named Official Recycling Providers of the Convention and implemented a closed-loop recycling program in which all recyclables from the Xcel Energy Center and St. Paul RiverCentre were sorted and baled locally, with all polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottles and aluminum cans shipped to the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Eagan, MN, for processing into new beverage containers. All recycling bins in convention areas were single stream, meaning that all recyclables could be placed in the same bin for sorting later. Waste Management, which handled all of the paper and cardboard recycling, is the largest recycler in United States, recycling nearly eight million tons of materials annually.
"We've done an awful lot as a hotel prior to the Republican National Convention to minimize our impact on the environment," says Thompson, citing the property's HEAT Team (Hyatt Environmental Advocacy Team), its version of the Hyatt corporate Green Team. The team, which was founded a couple of years ago, comprises a cross section of hotel employees from all levels and departments who meet once a month and organize informational initiatives for employees. The group explores ways to lessen their environmental impact, both within the hotel and in their personal lives.
Programs at the Hyatt Regency include an extensive recycling program, ensuring that kitchen equipment is not left on when not in use, and collecting food scraps to be reprocessed and used as feed for livestock at nearby Second Harvest Farms. Thompson notes that it's important for the hotel to balance the needs of its clientele with the desire to go green. "We're still in the service business, so we have to deliver [based on] the expectations of our customers. Some ideas are wonderful, but don't fit with our ability to service our customers," he says.
Swaying the Undecided
Of course, there were also critics of the green projectssome questioned the lack of recycling bins around congested areas such as the Pepsi Center and convention center in Denver as well as the effectiveness of the carbon offset program; carbon offsets are controversial, as their impact can be difficult to quantify. And in Minneapolis, the hype surrounding basic green programs such as bottle recycling was brought into question. Even so, most agreed that the steps each convention took were laudable and show what other groups can do if they are so inclined.
"Because there are levels [of commitment and cost], people can get on board. It's not saying, 'Okay, you have to wear hemp clothing and recycle everything,'" explains Denver's Benedick. "To say that tomorrow we're going to be a zero-waste industry probably isn't realistic, but to show the steps we're taking is important."
But did they beat the Republicans at the green game? Benedick was diplomatic, noting that Hurricane Gustav threw a curveball at the RNC. "I have to be kind to them because they definitely didn't have Mother Nature on their side during their convention," she says.
When Hurricane Gustav created a planner's nightmare and forced the Republican Party to halt events scheduled for Monday night, some visitors went to the Guthrie Theater, the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, and other area sites. "It was not a nightmare, but a scramble, a lot of shifting on the fly," Michael Kofsky, Hyatt director of sales and marketing, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune during the convention; guests were assisted with last-minute dinner reservations and nightlife options during the time they had planned on hearing President Bush speak.
In the end, both cities were successful hosts by both traditional and green standards. "I think that we all continue to struggle with how we can be more environmentally friendly yet continue to deliver good quality of service in the hotel. I think sometimes we overlook small things that can make a huge impact going forward," says Thompson. "And I don't know that we do a great job promoting some of those things we do internallysometimes it sounds a little self-serving.
"It shouldn't take a group like the RNC coming to the hotel to get you to do these things," he says. "Certainly some groups are more focused on the environment [than others], but most don't want you to be wasteful. We have to deliver the expectation of the customer, and if they are highly motivated by the environment, we should be able to stand up and help them."
Originally published Nov. 1, 2008
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