Opportunity Green 2010 Greening Report

8/6/2019 Opportunity Green 2010 Greening Report

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Sometimes you gotta roll up your pant legs too

SUSTAINABILITYREPORT

2011


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Karen SolomonCEO

LETTER TO STAKEHOLDERSWelcome.

On behal o our team here at OpportunityGreen, Im proud to present our

2010 Sustainability Report.With this report were inviting you to look inside our 2010

conerence environmental sustainability program. We wantto show you what the numbers look like and share a bit aboutwhats going well and where weve been challenged and arelooking to grow. Well also present some exciting plans or

our 2011 conerence.Were encouraged to see a growing business interest in

sustainability across industries and cultures as additionalthought and resources go into programs, processes andreporting.Implementing well thought out sustainable business

systems through partnerships and across supply chains arean opportunity or us as executives and proessionals to begood citizens. Teyre an opportunity or our businesses, toreduce risk and improve image, to reduce waste and improve

protability. oday with an ever growing body o knowledgeand resources at hand, reducing harmul impacts that wereonce considered business-as-usual are nally becomingpossible. We are proud to support the commitment oorward-thinking executives, managers and proessionals likeyoursel toward the loy goal o leaving the world in a betterplace than we ound it!Like you, were aced with dicult choices. We dont have

unlimited resources and it can be dicult to know what toprioritize and what to take on next. As with any organization,how to take on new initiatives in a cost-eective manner is o

the utmost importance.Tus weve decided that our own path to sustainable

business best practices will include looking at our impacts both benecial and harmul - and report those to you,our stakeholders, in a clear and concise manner. We believesharing our experiences will help us get better, and will bebenecial or you too.Finally, one o the accomplishments were most proud

o that you wont be able to see in this report (at least notdirectly) is the passionate commitment o our team, theun we had brainstorming and testing our ideas, and the

bonds weve built by rolling up our sleeves (and pant legs!) todevelop and implement processes that allow us to make thisreport meaningul.Were not perect no one is but we commit to you, and

to everyone in our community, that well keep on doing ourvery best to listen, analyze and improve every step o the way.

Enjoy Our Report,

Karen Solomon

CEO, Opportunity Green


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During the 2010 conerence, attendees1 tossed 3,200 pounds2

o material into our resource recovery bins. Tats two-times

what we recovered in 2009. Compared with a 12% increase

in attendance it becomes a telling statistic. We attribute this

jump to clearer communication with vendors and sponsors

regarding how to handle their pre- and post-conerence waste.

Our Diversion Rate3 this year was 96.3% percent -- a 12.5%

improvement rom 2009. Tis initiative was a ocus or us in

2010 so were happiest to see that improvement. Diversion

Rate is easy to measure, is material to our Materials Manage-

ment eort (a little Global Reporting Initiative humor there),

and its lets us compare year-to-year perormance in a straight-

orward manner.

Compostable materials recovered went down to 400 pounds

in 2010 rom 520 pounds in 2009. We attribute this decrease to better pre-event management and serving meals with

less associated waste and better-trained volunteers.

We captured paper in the same bin as bottles and cans, which helped to limit the number o recycling bins needed

on-site. Since wet paper cant be recycled we asked attendees to empty

beverage containers beore binning the bottle or can. We captured 175 gal-

lons o this beverage remainder efuent (or backwash). Could backwash

be converted into a biouel? At this point that backwash is pure waste, but

were hoping that one o you enterprising entrepreneurs will turn it into a

byproduct4 in 2011.

1 We dene attendees to include staf sponsors, speakers, volunteers and paid

attendees.

2 Weights are accurate to the nearest 10 pounds.

3 Diversion Rate ormula:((Total Materials Recovered Material Landlled) / Total Materials Recovered)

4 Products, byproducts, and waste are the three outputs o any business process.

INPUTS & OUTPUTS

MATERIALS MANAGEMENT Los Angeles CenterStudios is designed

to be a lm and tele-

vision production

acility that also pro-

vides on-site oce

space to production

companies and other

tenants. Metering

utilities on their campus is congured to serve those busi-

ness requirements. Sub-metering electricity and water, in a

conguration that suits the interest o this report, serves no

practical business purpose or them, so the spaces we use

or the conerence do not have dedicated sub-metering. Tis

means that we can produce only very rough estimates o how

much electricity and water we pull during the conerence.

With all o this in mind, our apparent electricity consump-

tion in 2010 was not measurable (to estimate rom scratch

will take time). Our apparent water consumption was 1822

cubic eet.

Because the common areas we occupy at Los Angeles Cen-

ter Studios dont use natural gas weve stopped reporting our

consumption o it.

Were looking closely at ways

to improve our accuracy around

monitoring our consumption o

these resources in 2011.

METERING

ccf kWh


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While we understand that CO2 emission is produced by many conerence activities other

than travel, we choose to ocus on attendee travel because it is a large contributor, and we can

make a reasonably educated estimate o what it might be.

Our process or calculating CO2 rom travel begins with a survey sent via email to all at-

tendees. We ask attendees where they came rom (using their ZIP Code) and ask how they

got here through any mode o travel e.g. combination o rideshare, solo car, bike, airplane,

walking, etc. Tis gives us a rough idea o how many miles each respondent traveled or each

type o transportation. 124 people lled out this transportation survey.

We used the inormation provided and multiplied the emissions caused by each mile car

travel, or instance, times the miles driven, and did that or each type o transportation used

by each person. Tis gave us the total emissions per person. Our estimated average CO2emissions per person was 474kg. Multiplying by 798 attendees, that gives us 414 tons o CO2

total rom their travel to and rom the conerence.

Tings we could do to improve or next year would be to incorporate estimates o how

much carbon was probably emitted or the energy and materials need or various other

activities, services and products our attendees and sta engaged in throughout the coner-

ence. Like how much greenhouse gas is emitted through our electricity consumption, or to

produce the various ingredients in our organic cocktails at the aer-party.

Trough sponsorship we oset 65 tons o CO2, or 16% o the estimated CO2 that at-

tendees emitted rom traveling to the conerence. Tis oset was produced by generating

59,000 kWh o renewable energy. Aer

this oset, we estimate CO2 emitted per

attendee to be .43 tons.

INPUTS & OUTPUTS

TRAVEL

CO2E

Formula for Calculating Total [estimated] CO2 Emissions from Travel for

the 2010 ConferenceA = (total miles traveled by survey respondent using each given mode) * (average CO2

emitted per mile from each given mode), or CO2 Emissions for Survey Respondents for

Each Travel Mode

B = (A / Number of Survey Respondents), or Average CO2 Emissions per Survey

Respondent

C = (B * Number of Attendees) = Total [estimated] CO2 Emissions from Travel for the

2010 Conference


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Stakeholders are the most important

part o any business. Teyre the custom-

ers, the vendors, the sta everyone who

touches or adds value to a business. Tat

makes you one o our stakeholders.

Te question we continuously ask

ourselves in this regard is, , How do we

engage our large attendee, sponsor and

partner community in a dialogue that is

both practical and mutually benecial?

In the last two years weve run online surveys, onsite whiteboards, Linkedin &

Facebook threads, callin hotlines, and had ace-to-ace dialogue beore, during and

afer the conerence.

Youve pointed out areas where we can improve specic aspects our corporate sustainability

program. Youve shared lots o interesting ideas. And some o you have even volunteered to

help us implement those ideas.

Measuring success regarding our stakeholder engagement process has been one o ourmost interesting challenges. Resource-based initiatives have more easily quantiable targets,

like boosting return-on- investment by 10%, or reducing consumption by 10,000 units, Were

still exploring which metrics make the most sense - or us and or you.

So keep your ideas coming! Te best way or you to keep an eye on how well were engag-

ing with you is to watch how our sustainability program changes based on your input.

Send your thoughts and ideas to [email protected] , with the subject line

stakeholder eedback.

INPUTS & OUTPUTS

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT

So, what doyou think?

Why dontyou...


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2009 2010

DIVERSION PER ATTENDEE (POUNDS)

16.5%

32.5%

51.25%

12.5%

83.8%3.7%

DIVERSION RATE(RECYCLED + COMPOSTED)83.8% 96.3% DIVERSION RATE(RECYCLED + COMPOSTED)

WATER(CUBIC FEET)

POWER(kWh)

95.84

2096

(2009)

(2009)

RECYCLED(GLASS, PLASTIC,

ALUMINIUM,

PAPER)

COMPOSTED(ORGANIC

MATTER)

LANDFILLED(NOT RECYCLED

OR COMPOSTED)

*see Metering on page 3 for apparent discrepancies

1.03 .15.65 3.36 .50 .33

CO2 FROM TRAVEL (TONS OF CO2)123 (2010)

234 (2009)

2 PERATTENDEE

4 PERATTENDEE

SUSTAINABILITY REPORTNUMBERS


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First, a little backstory on our new home,Los Angeles Center Studios.In 2005 the executives o Los Angeles

Center Studios purchased the headquar-ters o a deunct petroleum exporter andmarketer, and began retrotting the cam-pus into a lm and television productionacility. Teir makeover included install-ing VFD-ower Fans (variable-requencydrive), a boiler retrot, lighting controls inoces, replacing carpet with recycled car-pet tiles, installing low-fow water aucetsand toilets and waterless urinals, l aunch-

ing a recycling program that includes pa-per, plastic bottles, cans, glass and e-waste.Low-water landscaping was planted andcomposting initiatives were added. FlixCa, the studios on-site commissary, ea-tures organic produce, uses compostableand recycled materials in ood production,and recycles ryer oil into uel.

Teir eorts resulted in a:68% reduction in uel consumption32% reduction in electricity consumption

26% reduction in water consumption

In just one year, LACSs recycling initia-tives saved an estimated:2,640 trees159 tons o paper and plastic

1,000,000 gallons o water$450,000

For morehttp://portal.lacenterstudios.com/SUS-

AINABILIY/MonthlyEnergyGraphs/tabid/100/Deault.aspx

Now, on to the 2010 conerence

WHAT WENT WELLTe experience weve gained since launch-

ing our corporate sustainability programin 2008 has greatly increased our teamseciency, so in 2010 we needed 20% ewervolunteers we did than 2009. Tis meantthat our volunteer training went smootherand that the ront line G-eam was gener-ally better inormed. Aer three years omanaging our conerence ootprint, therewere no big surprises - weve already expe-rienced a lot o the gotchas. Were pleasedto have comparison data rom 2009 and

2008, and even though the comparison isa bit apples-to-oranges, having that datamakes it easier to get new partners up-to-speed and ocusing on how to help us dobetter. And were especially pleased thatour diversion rate went rom 84% in 2009to 96% in 2010. Tats the equivalent omore than 3000 pounds o materials keptout o a landll in 2010 alone.

WHAT NEEDS WORKTe accuracy o our meter readings is a big

question that wed like to resolve or 2011.Because our spaces dont have dedicated

sub-metering, lots o other people outside othe conerence wind up impacting our ap-parent usage. Tat means were stuck tryingto unravel who used what and when, which

is extra tricky on a lot that has top-secretproductions running on it. Well do our bestto do better but or this year we were stuckusing a less-than-perect methodology.Another place we can make improvements

is a deeper coordination and understandingo heating/ventilation/air conditioning in amajor motion picture sounds stage! Beingin the sound stage in 2010, we learned thereare two settings or A/C, on and o.Since typical lighting or a movie shootproduces a lot o heat, our situation was abit dierent. In the uture we would work tomake sure we could have a way to throttlethe A/C more eectively, or comort andenergy savings.We received responses that our public

transportation inormation could be better.So i you know o a transit expert that wouldlike to help us improve our means o com-municating mass transit options in LA, dropus a line at [email protected] a avorite story o ours came rom

our volunteer Jared, who was part o the G-eam ront line. Jared shared with us thatwhen we were pouring-o the bever-age remainder efuent we realized that thedrains werent handling our capacity verywell, and suddenly I ound mysel shin deepin a blend o cold coee, tea, and soda.Aer he dried o, Jared kept right on withhis duties. He learned rst-hand that properdisposal o our waste liquids will require alarger drain. Tanks or being such a goodsport Jared! And thank you to all our volun-

teers as well.

WHATS NEXT?First wed like to announce a leadership

transition on our team. As o June 1, 2011Je Hayes stepped down rom our topsustainability post, with Natacha Arnaud-Battandier taking on the role o Sustain-ability Director. Welcome Natacha! Andthanks Je, or all the hard work you putgetting our program o the ground. Jewill stay on the team, in the newly createdrole o Reporting Manager.For a couple years weve been exploring

how to apply the Global Reporting Initia-tive ramework(GRI) to our conerence.Were in the discovery phase o this large

and complicated undertaking, and werehoping to produce 2011s report using the

GRI ormat.Well sharemore on ourprogress withGRI once wevemoved out odiscovery andinto implemen-tation.As o this

reportspublicationour corporatesustainabilitygoals or 2011are still beingnalized. Teywill be avail-able soon, staytuned!

IN 2010 OUR

DIVERSION RATE WAS

96.3%

Coffee?


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Sponsors

THANKSOpportunity Greens Corporate Sustainability program is a collaboration that includes

many individuals and several key organizations. Without the thousands o man-hours

they contribute, and the materials and resources they provide, this eort would stallvery quickly.

Let us begin by oering a huge Tank You to all our G-eam volunteers. We rely onyou and appreciate your energy, commitment, and your great ideas.Our sta is top-notch. Some are mentioned in the box to the right. Many others also

made signicant contributions. We grateully acknowledge the passion that you bringto the G-eam, and we appreciate you more than we can express in words.Our sponsors provide us with many key resources. Tank you, each o you, or all that

you bring to the table.

Well look orward to seeing you in November or the 2011 conerence!

Yours very truly,Te G-eam

CREDITSSustainability Director:Jeff Hayes

Sustainable Event

Director:Edward Pakdaman

Sustainable EventCoordinator:Neha Sharma

Materials RecoveryManager:Ruth Grant

Photos:Adrian Sidney, Geoffrey

Nicholson

Report Layout &Inforgraphics Design:

Barbara Astrini

Passionate about your eventTwitterClassicPartyGZ

Opportunity Green 2010 Greening Report

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