ISTC blog

The 2015 Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Awards Ceremony is ISTC’s premiere event, highlighting public and private entities who have gone above and beyond the standard method of business and incorporated sustainability throughout their organization. We strive to create a zero-waste, low impact Ceremony to celebrate these Award winners each year.

There are many things to consider when organizing a sustainable event. These include waste reduction, energy use, and use of local foods. During the event planning process, think about things you need, such as food and refreshments, transportation, plating, speaker sessions, and guest stays. Then, either use an existing green event checklist or create your own to integrate sustainability in as many steps as possible. Collect information on the venue’s sustainable practices as well. Here are a few suggestions.

Food and Plating

• Use local, seasonal, and organic produce for meal preparation. Ask your caterer or venue what portions or ingredients of each meal qualify under these categories.
• Sustainable seafood and meat sourced for meals
• Choose meatless meal options for guests – vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free
  • Due to the high impacts of the meat industry on our environment, choose to not serve red meat as a meal option.
• Serve all condiments, water, tea, coffee in bulk
• Use reusable utensils, plates, glasses and mugs – no disposables!

Waste Reduction

• Recycling services in place – paper, cardboard, beverage containers, plastic, steel, and plastic film in the back of the house and front of house
  • Advertise this to your guests so that they are aware of these efforts.
  • Make signage clear and readily visible so that guests know that they have the opportunity to sort their waste appropriately.
• Collect food scraps and organics from kitchen and meal preparation
• Ask your venue or caterer to use only reusable linens and napkins
• Line booths with reusable linens
• Do not provide individual garbage cans exhibitors
• Purchase reusable, bio-based name tags – collect them at the end of the event for future use.

Guest Rooms

• Provide in-room recycling bins for all guests associated with the event
• Provide the ability for guests to reuse towels, bedding and toiletries

Keep track of what your venue or caterer can accommodate so that you are clear when you communicate the sustainability of your event. You want to keep your credibility, so it’s important make sure that your actions match your words.

Here are some other great resources that can help you plan your next sustainable event:

• Yale’s Green Event Checklist
• ISO 20121 – Sustainable Events
• Sustainable Event Alliance

Come see how we’ve made the Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Awards a green event. The symposium and ceremony will be held October 27th at the Sheraton Hotel Chicago. More event information can be found here: http://www.istc.illinois.edu/info/awards_ceremony.cfm.

Hidden behind a gas station off of I290 in the North Lawndale neighborhood, the North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN) resides. Inside this former duplex lies a bustling employment and training center, natural skin care products and honey production facility, and about 20 bee hives in the backyard. It might look a little odd, but this is where new, sweet beginnings are launched, and formerly incarcerated people that want to change their lives around can, without judgement. This is the home of Sweet Beginnings, 2014 winner of the Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Award.

 

Sweet Beginnings began with NLEN’s founder and CEO, Benda Palms-Barber. Through NLEN, they had developed a four-week training program for formerly incarcerated citizens that want to get into, or back into, the workforce called the U-Turn Permitted program. Once the participants had completed this job-readiness program, they were having difficulty finding work. Ms. Palms-Barber decided that something needed to be done to bridge this gap. “I felt responsible for these people that really wanted to turn their lives around and find work. Employers sometimes just won’t hire someone with a background, even after going through our U-Turn Permitted program, and it is incredibly frustrating,” Ms. Palms-Barber notes. She knew that she had to get creative.

 

After many ideas and much frustration of trying to develop a program or business that could provide real work experience for those with little to no experience or education, Ms. Palms-Barber thought of something unique – bee keeping. The care and process of bee keeping is through storytelling, and taking care of hives and producing products develop real-world work skills and practice. She didn’t know that building apiaries was going to be her path until she spoke with one colleague who said – “Wouldn’t that be a sweet beginning?”

 

Now, Sweet Beginnings trains over 60 formerly incarcerated individuals per year with significant barriers to employment in a sustainable industry that also help important pollinators, bees thrive in a time of great decline. In turn, they produce locally-made, delicious and moisturizing products. The recidivism rate for former Sweet Beginnings employees is now below 4%, compared to a national average of 65%. Participating individuals have found jobs in manufacturing, food service, distribution, hospitality, customer service and more. Employers like the Chicago Transit Authority, and local businesses, regularly hire graduates of the Sweet Beginnings program. Additionally, after 10 years of operation, they have finally become a profitable enterprise.

 

Sweet Beginnings not only helps our environment be more sustainable by helping support pollinators, but they also help sustain their local neighborhood and provide rare opportunities to have a sweet, new beginning at life. I believe the founder and CEO of NLEN, Brenda Palms-Barber said it best: “Who would have thought that something so sweet is coming out of the North Lawndale area?”

 

You can find their Beelove products in the Chicagoland area through places like Marianos, Whole Foods, and at Hudson News at O’Hare and Midway airports.

 

Also – we will have a video coming out on our YouTube Channel about Sweet Beginnings shortly!

 

More information on Beelove products: http://www.sweetbeginningsllc.com/

 

More information on the North Lawndale Employment Network: http://www.nlen.org/

Over the last 29 years, there have been more than 500 Governor’s Sustainability Award winners. A select few that have won more than once. With so many companies winning the Award each year, it is hard to capture each winner’s path to the podium. To remedy this, ISTC has invited some of these Award past winners to share their stories at the Governor’s Sustainability Awards morning technical symposium.

 

Speaking with past Award winners about their sustainability journeys allows us to uncover key strategies and tools to overcome barriers to implementing sustainable initiatives. ISTC invites the audience to ask tough questions that will help identify solutions that advance sustainability throughout the state.

 

One of the key speakers on this panel is Steve Rundell, president of Solvent Systems International, which was one of the first winners of the Governor’s Sustainability Award. When he started his Elk Grove Village company in 1983, he wanted to help clients reduce chemical waste in places like dry cleaners and auto body shops. As he grew his business, he put his clients first by listening to their needs and creatively finding solutions that met them.

 

Solvent Systems International’s bio-based products create less waste. In a presentation to SCARCE (School & Community Assistance for Recycling and Composting Education), Mr. Rundell noted, “SSI’s products are designed so that at the end of their application the product does not persist in the environment but rather efficiently breaks down into an innocuous degraded product. We are committed to this mission to develop non-toxic products that perform as well as or better than the more toxic products in use today.”

 

During his talk at the Governor’s Awards, Mr. Rundell will discuss how he began to explore the development of  bio-based products for his company and how he has continued to evolve his company’s culture to focus on the intersection between sustainability and smart business solutions. This panel will run from 10:15am – 11:45am on October 27th at the Sheraton Hotel Chicago. Another speaker, to be announced, will join Mr. Rundell on the panel.

 

Don’t miss out on hearing Mr. Rundell, and other speakers, at the Awards Ceremony this year. Registration is now open – reserve your spot now!