I recently stayed at the Westin Colonnade in Coral Gables, and was pleased to see the hotel chain offers a “green” program for guests. Starwood Hotel Group’s Make A Green Choice program goes something like this: you hang the Green Choice card on your door by 2 am, and  you wake up in the morning to find a $5 voucher good for food and beverages in the hotel’s restaurant. Of course, the deal involves some sacrifice on the guest’s part, some of which is obvious and typical, some of which you only discover over the course of your stay.

The housekeeping staff doesn’t make your bed or exchange your towels–to be expected–but they don’t even come in your room to empty the waste basket or restock toilet paper, lotions, coffee, etc. Over the course of a lengthy stay, the imposition is likely enough to discourage all but the most stalwart eco-conscious among us from hanging the Green Choice card on the door yet again.

Truth be told, We did run out of tissue and lotion, and almost ran out of toilet paper. And, I did have to resort to using a second paper coffee cup after a few days–one I took from the coffee service in the meeting room for the conference I was attending–and I had to remember to stop by the front desk to ask for more coffee on my way up to the room each evening.

One question: why does a “green” hotel even offer paper coffee cups in its rooms–sleeping and meeting rooms alike? I would have much preferred to rinse out a real cup than the paper cup supplied in my room.

Second question: why, despite my comments from the podium, did the vast majority of meeting attendees opt to use the paper cups in the meeting rooms, rather than the real cups on offer?

FYI, the topic of my presentation at Road Race Management’s annual meeting of race directors was titled We’ve come a long way, baby, but have we, really? If folks won’t even opt out of using paper coffee cups, how much of an imposition will they tolerate from a hotel’s eco-friendly initiatives?

(By the way, there’s been a lot of comment on the Web that Starwood’s program is more about saving money on housekeeping staff than it is about going green. I’ll leave that debate up to somebody else. My interest is in having hotels develop green programs that really work, and engage their guests in making positive changes in their travel habits.)

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…)

Last weekend, I gave a presentation to Road Race Management’s annual meeting of race directors. The topic was Greening Your Event, and the theme of my talk was Catch The Wave. I’ve posted the presentation on SlideShare.net and encourage you to take a look.

I’ve been meaning to write a news summary post for a few weeks now …

On 10/30, Running USA’s Wire had a rundown of new elements for this year’s ING New York Marathon, including a list of eco-friendly practices and statistics. On the same day, the New York Times Green Inc. business blog had a post about the NY Marathon going greener, which was a follow-up post to one written on 10/14 titled Marathons: Reducing the Runner’s Footprint.

On 9/27, a story in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review previewed initiatives the city’s Great Race was undertaking to reduce the event’s environmental impact. Citiparks program coordinator Alex Shamraevsky, who attended the Road Race Management Green Events Workshop last April, said he “came back with the idea to create several recycling areas at the finish area — marked with green balloons — with city-owned collection bins and even containers for compostable material like banana and orange peels.”

In addition to the Green Inc. blog posts mentioned above, the New York Times has run two other stories recently: Saving the Earth, One Road Race at a Time, and a story about the ING Hartford Marathon taking part in two green projects–the Council for Responsible Sports’ ReSport Certification “seedling” program, and AFMInc’s Heatsheets recycling pilot project.

The November issue of Runner’s World was dubbed the “Green Issue,” and among its many features was a list of the 10 Greenest Races, and a recap of things 14 different races are doing to reduce their environmental impact.

Not to be outdone, Running Times’ November issue also featured a number of green running stories. They’re not available to link to online, but here’s a link to a Running Times Radio podcast on how races can lessen their environmental impact.

Finally, Good Dirt Radio’s current feature is a piece on the running industry’s efforts to go green, with interviews from participants in last April’s Road Race Management Green Events Workshop.

I’m sure I’ve missed a story or two. If you’ve got a link, please send it along via the comments link below.

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.

Some of the most progressive road races in the US were in attendance at last weekend’s Road Race Management workshop on green running events. Everyone had good news and great ideas to share, but I was most impressed by the strides these three events are making:

The AT&T Austin Marathon is a member of the Greenteam that’s being promoted by Runner’s World and Nature’s Path Organic–the only concerted effort I’ve seen that draws attention to the good work many events are doing. (In fact, absent a sponsor conflict with Nature’s Path, I cannot see why every event that is making tangible progress toward environmentally responsible goals and objectives wouldn’t want to be a part of the Greenteam.)

In addition to being a Greenteam member, the AT&T Austin Marathon features a few green innovations that didn’t show up anywhere else in my pre-workshop survey of running events:

(more…)

Are you part of the problem of part of the solution? What do you do with the thousands of cups, water bottles and other trash generated by your event? What efforts do you or should you make leading up to race day?

On April 5th, in Arlington, Virginia, running event directors from across the country will gather to learn:

• Which U.S. road races are setting the Green Standard?
• What are best practices?
• Where do you go to find green vendors?
• And much, much more.

Please join me as I lead this all-day workshop presented by Road Race Management.