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On green one-upmanship at the DNC and RNC
Both the Democrats and Republicans appear to be scrambling in a game of one-upmanship to host "the greenest national convention ever." While that's commendable, I'm a heck of a lot more interested in seeing some thoughtful green policies.
The green building movement really led the charge in greening conferences, but it was dictated by the conference content. Organizations like the American Solar Energy Society, the U.S. Green Building Council, and Southface Energy Institute have been challenging conference venues to green their operations for years, even choosing cities based on their green initiatives.
With the political parties, the lion's share of their environmental footprint is their policies, not the food they serve at these once-every-four-years events. When I see the RNC providing bicycles to conference attendees while promoting 'clean coal' (brought to you by the manufacturers of 'jumbo shrimp') and expanded drilling, I call it greenwash. It's like the GMC Suburban-driving shopper with re-usable grocery bags. Nice gesture, but the Suburban's the elephant in the room (so to speak).
Thankfully, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer's speech last night to the DNC assuaged my cynicism slightly:
"...we face a great new challenge, a world energy crisis that threatens our economy, our security, our climate and our way of life. ... America consumes 25 percent of the world's oil, but has less than 3 percent of the reserves. You don't need a $2 calculator to figure that one out. There just isn't enough oil in America, on land or offshore, to meet America's full energy needs. ... Invest $150 billion over the next 10 years in clean, renewable energy technology. This will create up to 5 million new, green jobs and fuel long-term growth and prosperity."
Let's see some green policy one-upmanship!
Oh, stay cynical. $150 billion is, off the top of my head, directly spending $30,000 for each job. And that won't include state subsidies, mandates and other indirect subsidies. And that's if the "up to" is even reached. It's not sustainable if the government has to shell out that large of a sum.
Joellen from Marketplace, here. Since the topic of the federal budget comes up, I can't help but chime in and mention the budget game we (American Public Media) created.
Budget Hero is a news game where you can try your hand at crafting a federal budget that matches your values -- you can try to make a budget that pushes the U.S. toward energy independence, or matches various "green" values.
The game is available on <a href="http://marketplace.publicradio.org/features/budget_hero/">the Marketplace website</a>, and has been recently updated to include details on the policies that McCain and Obama are championing in their campaigns.
If you play, can you meet "sustainable energy transition" goals for the federal budget?
Great post, Jim-
Policy is where the rubber meets the road. I hope that is where the next chapter of the game takes us.
But we must recognize that symbols at a convention are important as well. If the tens of millions of viewers following the party conventions see that it is cool to recycle, buy CFLs and LEDs, drive Priuses and Aveos, and bike, walk and ride transit -- then we can make a giant step as a nation.
$150 billion over 10 years isn't bad at all, Allen. We can free that kind of money up by pulling out of Iraq in the next couple of years and discontinuing the ridiculous Bush tax cuts for the wealthy that have bankrupt our federal coffers.
Onwards to a national budget that reflects the importance of a sustainable energy transition to get our climate and our finances back into balance!
Thanks for the post, Allen. I think your analysis may overlook some of the key benefits of renewable energy infrastructure investment, however. Namely, the renewable energy infrastructure.
This feels a bit like saying the federal highway system wasn't a good investment because the expenditure wasn't consummate with the number of construction jobs generated in the first year while overlooking the long term transformation of our economy that resulted from the investment.
Germany, with sunshine equivalent to Anchorage Alaska, is currently installing solar panels at a rate 8-times that of the U.S. Our lack of renewable energy investment risks leaving us at a long-term competitive disadvantage with the rest of the developed, and developing world. Not to mention the growing security risks posed by our reliance on non-renewable energy. Or the need to address global warming.
Though a key benefit, renewable energy investment is not just about the green collar jobs.
Good points Janne -- the industry is changing nationally as we speak. The American Hotel & Lodging Association has new green guidelines, they are featuring environmental management strategies in their annual conference this year, the US Green Building Council is working with them on creating standards for hotels.
How to help? Speak up! If a lodging promises to not change your linens or towels and does, then you need to speak to guest services. If you see something you like, then praise them. This is an extremely customer sensitive industry and unless they see/hear/feel the demand for greening, they might assume it's a fleeting or illusory trend.
You can work in partnership with your state hotel & lodging association and help them form partnerships with community groups, transportation NGOs and natural resource groups. Finally, they need to be helped along- like so many industries-- in elongating their ROI expectations. Many real estate investment trusts and investors expect rapid, sometimes unrealistic rates of return -- and the benefits of high performance buildings are not on that timetable. This will take a longer view and a different kind of tenant/owner/investor relationship.
Great green conventions! I think this is a wonderfully encouraging story: E85 flex fuel trucks and bottled water aside, this green political convention trend transcends and follows a longer story about the greening of meetings nationwide. Long before the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Conventions first organized in 2004, convention centers and hotels all over the United States have been retrofitting their buildings, responding to requests for proposal to green meetings of every stripe and sporting new LEED certified convention centers that are shoring up millions of dollars of new business.
Leading organizations in the US, notably led by Meeting Strategies Worldwide
and the Green Meeting Task Force of the Convention Industry Council, have been illustrating the economic, environmental and community benefits of greening meetings and addressing the significant implications of all meetings.
The challenge here is three-fold: (1) will the changes become a standard business practice of convention practice both in Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul; (2) will these strategies be part of all politically oriented meetings and standard business practice; and (3) will these policies make their way into Congress and party platforms to support (and not just in passing reference) renewable energy, high performance buildings, tax credits for companies that manufacture environmentally responsible products and help us build a sustainable economic development strategy that really has teeth?
Innovation strategies need financial, communication and public-private partnerships. It is long overdue to promote sustainable innovation and economic development that transcends blue and red. Anachronistic policies, approaches and manufacturing that favor inefficiency need to end now and these conventions are at least a vigorous step in that direction.
I love the big policy talk. I also want the actual events to be greener.
How are the details actually going?
This spring, I coordinated a conference and we worked really hard to do it greener. We picked and promoted a transit-accessible location, convinced the hotel to have bike parking, served as much local food as we could, insisted the hotel recycle, prohibited disposable tableware, and more.
We had lots of success, and we had bumps. The bike parking was only accessible if you rode through a barrier that said, "Bikes prohibited." Even though we'd walked through the set-up with the hotel, the recycling wasn't placed near trash cans so people tossed trash in the recycling bins.
I'm now working on a <a href="http://www.bikeclassic.org/">bike ride</a> where we use solar power for the main band sound system. We divert all but 5% of the waste. We serve locally produced foods. Succeeding consistently on all these fronts has taken many years.
My take away from working on both of these? Events are hard work. A green event is much harder - and never perfect.
Heidi -
I'm psyched about all these big changes, but frankly, as someone organizing things on the ground, I just don't see it. A few large chains are on board, and some local businesses.
But - how often has it happened that the hotel puts out that "change my linens only if I ask" card, but then they get changed every day anyway? Or recycling bins are full of trash... or sorted but then dumped in the trash anyway?
Policies are great and all, but for every hotel or business successfully implementing sustainability policies, I've stayed in four that only make halfhearted attempts and mostly fail at even the simplest of steps.
For successful implementation, the effort put into teaching employees customer service is going to have to be put into teaching them greener practices.
Any suggestions on how to speed that up?
