Green Tradeshows

Welcome 2010! With a new year of hopes and dreams of your business growing, there is also the task of working out your 2010 marketing budget. This is the time to take a close look at how to reduce costs while also reducing your carbon footprint.

2010 is the year of new ideas and a year to make a lasting impression. Tradeshows are a common marketing tool for most companies. However this year, companies are expected to change their strategy by going green. Quality does not have to be pushed to the way side in order to become sustainable.
Here are a few helpful hints on how you can wow someone while still being green.

By developing many configurations out of one concept and making your graphics, brand, and message general you can eliminate the need to design and print tradeshow collateral for each event. Glenda Brungardt, Tradeshow/Event Manager at HP states, “Print it once and use it many times with build and burn not an option.”

Shipping charges can sky rocket with heavy materials. Why not build your booth out of bamboo or lessen your carbon footprint by using recycled building materials. In 2008, HP used a green booth. After tracking costs and saving, “they realized a 30% reduction in freight and drayage charges, along with major savings on sign printing.”

Reducing your tradeshow staff will reduce your carbon footprint immensely. Instead of having enough staff to switch out every other day, gather a smaller but stronger team and use them instead. Heil Environmental learned that 52% of their CO2 emissions were from their staff’s air travel. This proves that it’s time to make a change.

In the end it all comes down to the bottom line. By printing once, you are saving on print costs. By lightening the load, you are saving on shipping costs and by reducing staff you are saving on travel expenses. Add it all up and you are also saving the world. Okay, maybe not the world but you are definitely making a difference by reducing your carbon footprint and an effort to support sustainable business practices in 2010.