Sustainable meetings

Now that the meetings and events industry has come up with a set of comprehensive guidelines for sustainability, there's been a lot of buzz about whether or not we should spend the time adopting those standards.
We said yes, for obvious reasons.
Here's the full post, over at Sched.org. Thanks to Marvin McTaw for encouraging us to post our experience on the green side of business.

"Social business"--what does it mean to you?

We just read a mind-boggling, three-page blog post on What Social Business means. It was full of terms that we just don't use socially. We pulled this gem, in particular:

"[Social business] is a sociopolitical historical shift that is bigger, broader and much more fascinating."

We're going to be a lot more brief--and more understandable--than that.

First let's look at a business that's truly bought into the social business model.

IBM has crafted an entire strategy around not just using social media, but about ensuring that all of their employees understand what it means to be a truly social business. (IBM no longer sells directly to the consumer, so it has to pay added attention to what its employees want and feel.) Specifically, it's operating on a three different levels:
1. Engagement
2. Transparency
3. Nimbleness
We like this concept. We fully embrace the fact that businesses, even ones that are B-to-B, should be engaged with their employees and their customer base; that we should be as transparent as possible, and that we need to react well and fast to any opportunities and challenges that come our way.

But we don't think it's all that complicated, nor do we think it's all that revolutionary. Our vision is this: People first. That means customers and employees. And really, it can be illustrated at a micro level.

For instance, it used to be that you went out and bought something at a big box store, and that was the end of it. Now it works like this:

1. You're looking for an widget, so you ask your friends on Facebook what widgets they like the best.
2. Your friends recommend several options, but one stands out above all the others.
3. You go on to amazon.com; etsy.com; ebay.com, and search for this particular widget.
4. You find a widget that's been highly recommended by other widget-experienced people, on sale from a seller with high recommendations from other widget-purchasers.
5. You order your widget. The widget-seller tells you when it ships.
6. You get your widget and are happy or sad or just enh about it, so you feed back directly to the widget-seller about your experience.

See? It's social all the way through. There is communication all the way through, and transparency too. At its best, this is the way business should work.

For us at The Hub, that means the following:
1. We maintain as much transparency as possible: Our green standards, for instance, are readily available to our clients.
2. We make sure our clients have ample opportunity to feed back to us about what we can do better.
3. We make sure our employees are encouraged to feed back to our leadership--and each other--about where we've gone right, and where we can do better.

How is your business social?

Our Interns Never Give Up

As we head into fall, we're reminded of one of just one of the things that makes summer so great here at The Hub: our interns.
In fact, our interns make working here great year-round, because we ensure that there's space on our team for interns year-round. Why? Well, because of interns like Rachael Pignotti, who joined us at the beginning of the summer and will be with us part-time during the fall.

Meet Rachel, one of our talented interns.

Rachael's a student at Temple University, from which she'll graduate in December. Her major, International Business and Marketing, put her on our radar, but it was her interest in sustainability in business that made us perfect matches for each other. She's an officer in a student professional organization at Temple called Students for Responsible Business, and she happens to manage green event planning for the group.
"The first thing that attracted me to The Hub is that it's LEED certified," she says, referring to our silver designation from the U.S. Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
But Rachael quickly learned that Hub Sales Director Stephanie Koch and CEO John New wouldn't let her work with just the aspects of business that she was familiar with. They set her to work on a critical side of business she hadn't yet been familiar with: web sites and Internet outreach for our clients. "This is such a great place to grow," she says. "I've learned so much over the past months, and these are things I was always going to have to learn anyway."
Rachael also works in an area of The Hub that's more germane to her position at SRB: marketing promotions. "I’m learning how The Hub likes to brand themselves, and I combine that with my ideas, and it’s been turning out really well," she says.
Part of that success is Rachael's dogged pursuit of sustainability in the meetings and events industry. "We're adamant about green here at The Hub, and making it a part of our company, but I'd love to see more companies be more aware of choosing places that are sustainable, like The Hub. Sooner or later, the marketing of that is going to be beneficial, if not critical," she says.
While Rachael identifies with all five of our Core Values, the one that's closest to her heart is Never Give Up. "I'm incredibly stubborn," she says, "Mostly to myself. I've had some opportunities to opt out of projects that I'm unfamiliar with, and I think it's important to just keep on working."
We agree, Rachael. We'll miss you when you graduate, but we're so happy we got to meet you.
For more information on interning at The Hub, click here.

EcoMonday: Lights, conservation, action!

We had a bright idea back when we first started. Let's dispense with the standard lightbulbs.

We did, too. We use energy-efficient CFL, or compact fluorescent lights at our Hub locations.

We do it for a couple of reasons.

• CFLs use 30-60 percent of energy when compared to standard incandescent lights
• The smaller amount of energy used means less heat output
• The longer lifetime of these bulbs (8 to 15 times that of incandescent bulbs) means we'll be using fewer lightbulbs
• Cost savings over the lifetime of a CFL bulb as compared to incandescent bulbs is significant. (The EPA estimates that an Energy Star bulb will pay for itself within about six months.)

So yeah, for all these reasons, we made the switch. But then we realized we could take it a step further. So we began to look at light in a more holistic fashion. Specifically, we built our facilities to make the best use possible of natural lighting. And then we took into account the way that natural light works: Too much of it during the summer, and conference and meeting rooms get hot, and your employees get sweaty--not good for productivity. Too little of it, and people get gloomy.
So in each of our meeting rooms, we have translucent shades that we lower or raise, to keep the temperature moderated and our clients and staff happy.
We also make sure to keep all of our light fixtures and lamps clean, so that each lamp and light works to its best.
Finally, each room has individually controlled lights. When we know a room is going to be out of use for more than 15 minutes, we turn off the lights. It's written into our policy to do so.
And all of our lights are dimmable, so that we can adjust according to how much natural light is needed--or is already coming into the room.
Every single one of these steps has contributed to a healthy office. What's the one thing you'd change about your office to make it a better place to work?

EcoMonday: EnergyStar, demystified

You hear it bandied about all the time: "Get an Energy Star appliance, it'll help." But what does that mean? Is it just a case of green-washing, another gimmick for companies to push more goods under the guise of environmentalism?

Is this an Energy Star Appliance? If so, what does that mean? Read on to find out more.

Well, Energy Star really does exist. It's backed by the U.S. Government and by the EPA, and serves as an international standard for energy-efficient appliances. It was created in 1992, under the Clinton administration, and originally was meant to just cover computers. Since then, though, it's been expanded (we're now in Energy Star version 5.0 for computers, by the way), and now the guidelines comprise everything from refrigerators to windows and doors, which can contribute to energy loss by not sealing efficiently, or letting in too much heat or cold.
Really quickly, here's some information about what that means for your office:

• Energy Star retrofitted and built-to-specification vending machines can save 50% more energy than models that haven't been built to Energy Star standards.
• Energy Star water coolers can save up to 45% more energy than standard units.
• Energy Star computers use between 30 and 60% less energy than non-Energy Star units.

You can also apply to be an Energy Star office (The Hub is LEED Silver certified, which we believe encompasses a larger set of standards, but Energy Star is a great place to start. Energy Star building information can be found here.)

At The Hub, everything from our servers to our dishwasher has the Energy Star stamp of approval on it. We don't purchase appliances that don't carry some kind of efficiency standard. And, because of the recent March controversy over Energy Star, during which 10 of 15 bogus items were passed through Energy Star standards, we try to do a little back-checking, using the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy web site as a backstop.

Heck, a little research never hurt anyone, and we'll do it in the name of fiscal and environmental responsibility.

EcoMonday: Flor-ing it to a greener workspace

We've already told you a little bit about some of the steps that we take to make our workspace more sustainable. Turns out, one of the biggest answers is right under our feet.

Pop quiz: Which one of the items in the this photo contributes most to our sense of CSR? It's not what you think.

We use Flor carpeting in our facilities, and we'd like to tell you why: We do it because Flor not only looks great, it's also part of one of the most forward-thinking sustainability movements around. While some major corporations are just now getting behind corporate social responsibility, Flor's parent company, Interface Global, has been doing it for over a decade now, starting with CEO Ray Anderson's (pictured below) 1994 promise to take nothing from the planet that can't be replaced by the planet.

Photo via Interface

That sounds pretty lofty, and the goal that Anderson has set for Interface matches that expectations: Anderson wants Interface to be a zero-impact company by the year 2020. (In March of this year, the company launched a year-long metrics measuring program, so it could better gauge how it's doing in its quest. You can read those results here.)


Okay. Now you know a little bit more about Interface, and why we chose Flor. But realistically, what does that mean for a sustainable office? It all breaks down to the steps that Flor's taken.

• Work with the best: Flor only works with sources that share its vision of sustainability. To that end, it also is constantly on the lookout for new materials that will break down, or recycle into new carpet tiles.
• Reduce, reuse, renew: Flor's manufacturing system is tight. There's very little waste. All Flor tiles can be returned to Flor for breakdown into new carpet tiles. Its modular system (you buy batches of Flor tiles to make up a wall-to-wall carpet, or a rug) means that if you spill something on a tile, you just replace that one section of the carpet or rug.
• Closed-loop sustainability: From beginning to end, the entire Interface company works to reduce its impact. Everything is as locally sourced as possible, and employees even participate in sponsoring the planting of nearly 100,000 trees in order to offset the carbon footprint of things like air travel and commuting.

We like what we see at Flor, and we think it's a pretty good model to use. In the end, what it says to us is that the most quotidian of things can be sustainable, and that sustainability can be a great business model.

Interface's project is called Mission to Zero, and you can take a look around at its drive to get consumers to participate here. For more on sourcing low-VOC carpet, you can visit the Carpet and Rug Institute here.

EcoMonday: What's a VOC?

You know that VOCs are bad for you. You might even know that VOC stands for Volatile Organic Compound. And you might even have worked your way past the fact that "organic" typically means something good, but that VOCs are to be avoided. So why are they bad for you, and how can you best avoid them?


Even charts that attempt to describe VOCs graphically can be confusing. Read on to find out more about VOCs.

VOCs aren't anything new. Speaking in broad terms of everyday household items, a VOC is anything that changes into gaseous form as you use it, after which it combines with other gases to contribute to ozone.
Not good, right?
Although you can't really avoid VOCs like methane, you can easily ensure that VOCs have a minimal place in your indoor spaces (The EPA estimates that indoor air quality is often five times worse than outdoor air quality, for obvious reasons: air comes into your home, but unless you've got a constant open-door, open-window policy, it doesn't always make its way out.)
At the Hub, we used low-VOC paints (water-based), and also rely on standards like those from Design for the Environment to ensure that our cleaning products are low-VOC. Our carpets and furniture are also low-VOC. We've also taken a hard look at the Green Seal to help us to hunt down cleaning and household items that allow us to be as ecologically sensitive as possible.

(Yes, it's true. Carpets and furniture, which end up making use of sealants, laminates, or adhesives, can carry a dangerously large amount of VOCs.)
Practically speaking, VOCs may not have short-term effects, although we know a girl who gets woozy at the smell of VOC paint and particle- and press-board. But studies have shown that career painters are susceptible to cancers that can be traced directly back to VOCs.
We buy low-VOC for many reasons, but the health of our employees and clients is top of the list. What types of measures do you take in your office for your employee and client health?
Find a full list of Design for the Environment-certified products here. And Home Depot's Eco Options program is a good source for hunting down low- or no-VOC paints.

Eco-Monday: Car Sharing

Monday: Costco run; take the pickup
Wednesday: Farmer's market run; take the Prius
Thursday: Client meeting at The Hub Chemical Heritage Foundation site; take the Audi.

No, no, it's not the schedule of our friendly local millionaire; the guy with the twenty-car garage. It's the way our partners at PhillyCarShare envision a potential work week.

Goodness! So many cars to choose from!

As much as we love the idea of changing cars as often as we change our shoes, we're truly enamored of car-sharing for its environmental benefits. How's that, you say? It's still a car on the road, isn't it?
Well--at face value, it is. But for those of us working and living in big cities like Philadelphia, New York, and Chicago, it makes complete and total environmental sense to just have a car when we need it. Experts at Carsharing.net, an industry resource, estimate that for every one car share, there are 15-20 fewer cars on the road.
How's it work? Well, take PhillyCarShare for example. When staff at The Hub have to go between sites, we make a reservation at PhillyCarShare.org. We go to pick up the car at one of PhillyCarShare's many convenient parking spaces, and drop it off later.

Philly Car Share locations are convenient and plentiful.

In the end, we're keeping cars off the road by borrowing from a pool of cars that already exist. We're living healthier lives, because we've gotten used to walking or bicycling places that we might have just previously driven to out of sheer laziness.

And although the environmental benefits of car-sharing might be long-term, the economical value of our arrangement with PhillyCarShare is really quite immediate: We don't have to buy a fleet of Hub vehicles. And that makes car sharing a smart business decision, at the very least.