Don’t Just be LEED; LEAD!

Aug 05, 2009 No Comments by
I wish this had been natural lightDear Pasadena Convention Center, Thank you for being a great conference venue during a recent event I had attended.  You are located right in the middle of what’s fantastic about Pasadena, and I love the fact that you are walking distance from two Gold Line Stations.  During the conference, however, I noticed some slips that you should sort out if you really want to be a “green” facility:
  • In the foyer, you have huge windows that let in natural sunlight, which should be a no-brainer in Southern California.  So why did you leave on all those lights during the day, especially during those hot San Gabriel Valley afternoons?
  • The no-flush urinals in the men’s room are a great start.  How about adding those turbo-charged hand driers so there isn’t so much waste from paper towels?  Talk to the folks at Dodger Stadium.
  • Shouldn’t there have been more recycling bins throughout the entire facility, including those for paper?
  • Why not have pitchers of water instead of using those electric water filters (do you change those filters?), and ditch the plastic cups.  It’s better to wash instead of waste.  And those corn-based plastic cups really don’t solve the problem:  not everyone will compost them and they won’t mix with petroleum-based plastics.
  • It’s difficult to cook for 500 people.  BUT serving hormone-laden chicken for one lunch and then farmed salmon another rankled many conference attendees.
Now if we can only encourage vendors to not bring cheap plastic tchotchkes that end up in landfills . . . we’d really be on to something! Happy Conventioneer-ing!

air - land - quality of life, construction and architecture, energy, water

About the author

Leon Kaye is the founder and editor of GreenGoPost.com and its advisory division, GGP Media. Contact him to discuss how he can work with your organization or event. His focus is making the business case for sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR). He writes for San Francisco-based Triple Pundit, Inhabitat and now The Guardian, for which he writes about waste, water, and green building. He has also written for AIA's Architect Magazine. Leon lives in Los Angeles, and when he has free time, he enjoys hiking, gardening, cooking, weightlifting, and planning his next trip to one of the 50+ countries he has visited. He has an MBA from USC's Marshall School of Business and is also a proud graduate of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) and Cal State-Fresno.
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