I’m a pretty loyal guy, and brand name companies have to do a lot to lose (or earn) my support. For years, I’ve been a big fan of The Home Depot, all because of their support for American Olympic Athletes through their jobs program. Even when Home Depot scrapped the program, I stuck with them … until today.

Today’s Waste & Recycling News features a story about Lowe’s and the “one-stop” recycling centers the chain has installed in over 1,700 U.S. stores.

Now I don’t have to go to www.PlasticBagRecycling.org to find out where I can recycle film plastics, because I know I can recycle them at Lowe’s!

And, I would venture a guess that most race directors in this country have a Lowe’s nearby, so all that shrink wrap and other hard to recycle film plastic that is so ubiquitous can now be kept out of the landfill.

As a follow-up to the one question posed below about what to do with a ton of cups, I thought I would share a list of 20 questions event organizers should ask themselves as they begin to develop goals, objectives and plans for a greener running event. Before I do, however, I should point out that these questions were originally written for the second edition of Road Race Management’s Guide To Greener Running Events, which you can now order directly from RRM’s Web site.

This new booklet provides more than just an inventory of the green initiatives running events are implementing, and I hope it demystifies a lot of things event directors could and should consider doing. It also explores opportunities for “green” certification, presents a summary of hundreds of race directors’ thoughts and opinions about the environmental impact of their events and offers far more “how-to” guidance and narrative than the sold-out first edition.

The booklet is being sold for $55, including shipping and handling. The price for Road Race Management Members is only $50.

OK, here are 20 questions I think you should consider carefully as you begin to plan your road race:

Pre-race:

• What are your goals and objectives for going green?
• Who is going to manage the greening of your event?
• How much are specific green objectives going to cost, and how are you going to pay for them? 
• Who among your sponsors, vendors and civic partners will support your efforts? 
• What is the strategy for building awareness for your green initiatives? 
• What printing, if any, is absolutely necessary? Are there environmentally friendly printing options available to you for both paper and signage/banner needs? 
• How can you minimize shipping distances and impacts? 
• What alternatives to the ubiquitous goodie bag are available to you (consider both the bag itself and its contents)?
• What other traditional features of your event can be made more green (pasta feed, expo, t-shirts, race merchandise, etc.)? (more…)

The recycling guidelines Lee and I have been working on for AFMInc are now available as a PDF download from AFM’s Web site here.

What started out as an effort to develop specific recycling recommendations for AFM’s Heatsheets and other film plastics, evolved into a broader look at how mass participant sporting events should organize their overall waste recovery efforts. The end result is a booklet chock full of useful tips for race directors.

Be sure to take advantage of AFM’s generosity and download a copy of our Recommendations for Recycling at Mass Participant Sporting Events today.

Six weeks ago, Lee and I announced our first major project. (At least it’s the first big project/client that we can talk about–the other two big things we’ve been working on have been for a client that keeps their vendors on a very short leash when it comes to publicity.) Anyway, we’ve learned a lot working with David and Stepanie Deigan of AFMInc, and we’ve got a lot more to learn and work on before this particular project is a wrap.

As you’ll read below, one of the things we’ll be developing as a spin-off of this project will be a comprehensive waste management primer for our clients and other interested race directors, which will be available at no charge to race directors as a PDF download from the Heatsheets Web site.

In the meantime, here’s an update on what we’ve learned:

(more…)

As a follow-up to the How Green Is Your Event workshop I led last April, my friends at Road Race Management asked me to compile a Guide To Greener Running Events. The booklet is now available to order, and I hope the race directing community will find it to be a useful compendium of trends and ideas for making a running event–or any participant sporting event, for that matter–more environmentally responsible.

Highlights of the booklet include a summary of the results of a survey of some 100 race directors about their environmental policies and practices as well as a snapshot of what 29 different races are doing to reduce their environmental impact.

I hope you’ll check out the descriptive blurb on Road Race Management’s Web site.

By the way, if you wanted to attend my green events workshop last April, but could not, please note that I’ll be speaking on the topic again at Road Race Management’s Annual Race Directors’ Meeting in Hollywood Beach, Florida on Friday, November 7, 2008. You can learn more about the conference and download a PDF of the meeting brochure here.

One of the great things about the recent How Green is Your Event workshop was the opportunity it provided for environmentally conscious race directors to get to know each other and begin to build community. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve heard from a number of participants–all of them eager to tap into the collective knowledge and creativity of the group.

Peggy Rogers, Community Outreach Director for the ING Georgia Marathon & Half Marathon, actually sent along a specific query:

Does anyone know a provider of functionality to enable race participants to view and print their own finisher certificate from the event’s website? As a green advocate, and to reduce costs, our race would like to provide online finisher certificates rather than print and mail certificates, since not all participants are interested in receiving finisher certificates.

As a runner, I have used this functionality but I don’t remember at which marathon, perhaps the 2006 New Las Vegas Marathon.

I’d like to hear from anyone whose race has provided online finisher certificates and how you performed this function.

Thanks for any information or leads that you can provide.

Not only is this a great idea, but it’s a perfect example of how like-minded folks can help each other achieve a common goal of more environmentally responsible event production. It is also the perfect example of how Lee and I hope folks will use this Web site.

If anyone has a lead for Peggy, please use the comments feature below this post to respond.

Lee and I strive to provide valuable counsel to participant sporting events that are trying to clean up their act. But we’re far from being the only experts in this field. So when we discover useful resource materials, we’re pleased to share them with our clients and visitors to this Web site.

In 2002, Robin Hawley, an old friend and former colleague of Lee’s developed a recycling guide for Portland, Oregon’s Race For The Cure. Robin has worked extensively in the recycling field since receiving her Masters in Public Administration from Portland State University in 1998. She worked on the commercial recycling program for the Office of Sustainable Development for the City of Portland from 2000 until 2003, then joined the regional government, Metro, and took over responsibility for improving business recycling in the Portland region from 2003 to 2005. During that time she was also the lead individual responsible for event day recycling for the Susan G. Komen Foundation Race For The Cure, in Portland, Oregon. This event, with over 42,000 participants, achieved notable recovery while Robin was overseeing the recycling operations, recovering 72% of their waste while only landfilling 28%! Ms. Hawley is currently employed by Ecos Consulting, running the Program Management Office.

Thanks to Robin, here’s the link to a PDF that’s chock full of tips and stats for those of you who are trying to set up or improve your event’s waste management systems: race-for-the-cure-recycling-guide.pdf