Freeman, the leading global partner for integrated marketing solutions for live engagements, announced on Oct. 31 that the company’s ongoing commitment to sustainability was highlighted by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in its “Greenbuild 2012 Sustainability Report.”
Greenbuild, the world’s largest conference and expo dedicated to green building, is owned and managed by Hanley Wood, a media, event, information and strategic marketing services company serving the residential, commercial design and construction industries.
“Greenbuild’s success and emergence as the must-attend event in the sustainable construction industry is due in large part to our relationship with sustainably-minded partners such as Freeman,” said Rick McConnell, president, Hanley Wood Exhibitions. “We remain committed to instituting sustainability standards across our other events, building on the strong example set by Greenbuild.”
As the official service contractor for Greenbuild, Freeman helped show organizers create a successful sustainability program that achieved an 85 percent waste diversion rate at the 2012 show. Freeman partnered with the Moscone Center and USGBC to donate more than 13,000 pounds of used building and show management materials to local charities including Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco and Oakland’s Restore. Freeman employees identified and recorded any exhibitor goods not marked for shipping and evaluated them for possible donation. The Freeman team also worked to stack, shrink wrap, palletize and forklift donated goods to the nearest consolidation point in each exhibit hall.
“We truly value Freeman’s shared passion for environmentally responsible business practices,” said Kate Hurst, USGBC director, Greenbuild Conference and Events. “The Freeman team helped our show not only reduce waste but also find innovative ways to donate used materials to worthy causes.”
In addition to this recognition from the USGBC, Freeman’s sustainability efforts were also recently honored by the 2013 Tradeshow Executive Readers’ Choice Innovation Awards, which selected Freeman as the winner in the “Most Innovative Green Initiative by a Service Provider” category. The award recognized Freeman for its company-wide sustainability efforts including a recent effort to recycle plastics from various waste streams – including cigarette butts – into new plastic exhibit shelves.
“At Freeman, we’ve embraced a triple bottom-line approach to business – people, profit and planet,” said Jeff Chase, vice president of sustainability, Freeman. “We are honored to have our efforts publically recognized by our partners at the U.S. Green Building Council and Tradeshow Executive and hope that, through our example, we can help to move our industry toward adopting greener standards.”
