Spotlight on Huntington Place
by Mary Klida
A new story is being written in Detroit. It’s about people and place. It is about the character of community and the places they gather.
Huntington Place, along with leadership in Metro Detroit and the international event industry, is adapting the Sustainable Development Goals into sustainability and corporate responsibility programs to support the efforts and align day-to-day operations to meet the global goals.
The convention center is doing this by striving to reduce the impact of facility operations on the local communities’ environment. Everyone is included in the effort: staff, customers, visitors and neighbors. Sustainability lives here.
In 2015, the United Nations rolled out a plan with a set of 17 goals, called the SDGs, as the world’s shared plan to end extreme poverty, reduce inequality and protect the planet by 2030.
The SDGs outline innovations and actions that are helping the planet realize the potential and promise to “leave no one on the planet behind.”
Since then, 193 countries have adopted the goals to inspire people from across sectors, geographies and cultures. Achieving the goals by 2030 will require heroic and imaginative efforts, determination to learn about what works and agility to adapt to new information and changing trends.
The well-orchestrated effort of the Green Committee and its local agency network paid off in 2019. A whopping 280 tons of waste was diverted from the waste stream, including 60 tons of post-event donations that were upcycled to local nonprofits. The total also included 112 tons of food and kitchen waste, which were redistributed as compost to local urban gardens by the venue’s composting partner. Energy consumption was reduced by 24 percent. The full 2019 Annual Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Report was published in February last year.
Each year, the Huntington Place Green Committee makes great strides in expanding the venue’s program. The expansion of the living green roof now includes five honey bee hives (pictured above) and an organic herb garden that provides fresh produce to local farm-to-table restaurants. Lactation stations have been instituted at the center. They are especially equipped for nursing mothers on the staff or visiting during events. Water stations are scattered throughout the facility to fill water bottles and reduce single-use plastic waste. In 2020, Huntington Place (then the TCF Center) continued to implement sustainable programs and create new community partnerships to further realize the United Nations SDGs and expand sustainability efforts and Huntington Place will continue those efforts in 2022.
Huntington Place has a professional and experienced team that partners with the Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau and the regional hospitality community to fully support shows and conventions at the facility. As an economic engine for the Metro Detroit region and the state of Michigan, the venue’s team works together in cooperation with regional partners, and is committed to providing outstanding experiences for guests and sustainable operations for Metro Detroit citizenry. Everyone is invited to join the green initiative efforts to make the world more sustainable for future generations.
Green Committee goals in 2020 included expansion of the food efficiency program; additional bottle refill stations; attainment of LEED platinum status; and expansion of the venue’s corporate social responsibility program called Huntington Place Impact.
This story originally appeared in the special section, Spotlight on Huntington Place, in the Jan./Feb./Mar. 2022 issue of Exhibit City News, p. 31. For original layout, visit https://issuu.com/exhibitcitynews/docs/ecn_q1_2022.
