My Heart for Event Sustainability

A young Jessica, ready to yell at strangers on the street who liter

A story that my Mom loves to tell is that one day we were on a walk to the grocery store, it was a beautiful Spring morning, and we were having a good time. I must have been about six years old, so my brother wasn’t born yet. As we were walking, this man who has been drinking a bottle of water, finished his drink and then just threw the empty bottle on the ground. I immediately walked up to him and yelled “And who do you think is going to clean that up!” My Mom was understandably taken aback, and the man looked so startled. I’d like to note that he did not, in fact, pick up the plastic bottle but I did and then threw it away. I just remember thinking that it was our job to keep the Earth clean and this guy was shirking his duties.

When I went to college and got an internship at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), my mother laughed and laughed remembering that day almost 16 years before when I’d yelled at that man. Of course, I was going to work for an environment non-profit.

One of the things that I loved most in my ten plus years there, was that sustainability in the events that we planned was not the second, third, or fourth thought. It was so naturally woven into everything that we did, that when someone would call out how what we were doing was above and beyond, we didn’t really notice. It did create more work – it meant that there were vendors we couldn’t use, event spaces we’d have to skip, and things would couldn’t have at our events – like cut flowers, which I love. In working on the Greenbuild Conference & Expo, there was an expectation that we’d practice what we’d preached in the events. And the result was that we had a world class, award winning event.  I would love when we’d start working with a new vendor or city and they’d tell us all the ways what were we asking was not possible, and then by the end of the event they would have a wholly different prospective.

In learning how to plan sustainable events from the ground up, I was taught how to add sustainability into the event from the language we’d include in contracts, to decisions about what we’d give away to guests or attendees, and documents that I wrote to communicate our processes.

Over the next several months, I’m going to share with you the process for planning your green wedding.  It will be very modified from the stringent guidelines and protocols that we had at USGBC but will still help you to make an impact. If you’re already feeling overwhelmed by planning your wedding, and don’t think that you have the space to bring sustainability into your wedding, take a look at my tips and recommendations before you completely write it off. Deciding to make one decision around sustainability is better than doing nothing. You do not need to do everything you just need to have a mindset of how you can limit or change one thing to decrease the impact that your wedding has on the environment.

I look forward to talking with you about something that I’m still passionate about after nearly thirty years.

Next up: We'll get started with the top things to think about when thinking about greening your wedding