Learn About Our Green Footprint
How do we green our footprint at Boston GreenFest? It is one thing to set up an event to educate people about being eco-friendly and another to try to do it for ourselves! We have our own "Green Team" that works on every aspect of our event, and although we try to hold ourselves to the highest standards, we too, must recognize that we are on a continuum and try to improve from one year to the next.
Green Roofs/Gardens
Boston City Hall Plaza is a wide open hardscape in the heart of the city. since it is built over the subway station, any plants we bring to the site, help convert it into a green roof. When we hold Boston GreenFest we try to bring as many trees and plants as we can to green the space and help people envision our city with nature everywhere! Some years we are more successful than others. This year we plan to push the limits!
Energy
During our 8th Boston GreenFest, Direct Energy let us walk the talk in a big way, enabling us to offset 10 Metric Tons of energy that we consumed in the form of conventional energy. This year, MassEnergy is offsetting our energy use in the EcoKids Center.
The lights we use are CFLs and LEDs. We ask our exhibitors to try to be "low tech" at our event or use solar generators.
Buddying Up! Be Active Together!
We hope that you will take advantage of the free fitness classes this year at Boston GreenFest. Also, that your participation at Boston GreenFest will give you the chance to meet new people or at the very least motivate you to reach out to friends, colleagues or neighbors to "buddy up" and engage in doing things together. When you make a plan to work out together, it's harder to say no if you're tired, or the weather is not quite perfect. Having a partner to go for a walk, a run, a swim, makes all the difference. What about shopping for food and cooking a meal together? Taking this to a next level, what about creating a garden together, or buddying up as a neighborhood to make any improvements needed. Install a community compost or water harvesting system. Read books together to see what projects make sense and discover more DIY ideas from recycled materials. Having a buddy to do things with makes you feel better, lightening your footprint. That's what it is all about!
Be Active Together at the Beach
Composting and Waste Management
We compost our food waste.
A wonderful company, Go Green Solutions, Inc., provided us with clearly marked waste/recycle containers to help sort trash from recycled goods. Your company or town can take advantage of these terrific containers by adding your advertising and logo to them and placing them in strategic locations.
We recycle all bottles, cardboard boxes, plastic and paper with the help of Save that Stuff!
Water
No bottled water! MWRA provides us with a portable water fountain, allowing us to conserve water and energy. It takes three times the amount of water in a bottle of water to produce that bottle of water AND it takes around 3.4 megajoules of energy to make a typical one-liter plastic bottle, cap, and packaging.
Transportation
We encourage festival-goers to use public transportation (MBTA), walk, bike or carpool. Zipcar assists us with vehicles to help us get around during our event.
Food
We work with our food vendors to try to assure they are using eco-friendly supplies, local or organic foods to the extent possible, and a mix of vendors that include vegan and vegetarian fare.
Here are some links to learn more about food choices:
GREEN YOUR DIET!
TAKE EXTINCTION OFF YOUR PLATE!
Boston Vegetarian Society
Marketing
New website that is sleek and efficient.
Print only on recycled paper with ecofriendly inks at a local employee-owned printer - Red Sun Press.
Use a minimum amount of paper to make flyers and save the dates for the event.
Reuse any flyers left over from the previous year.
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