This Takes The Green Movement To A Whole New Level

Great article in the Wall Street Journal about the upcoming Democratic National Convention. Who knew there were so many ways to be green? Don’t answer that, I’m sure lots of you knew! Enjoy!

The Greenest Show on Earth: Democrats Gear Up for Denver

From Organic Fanny Packs to ‘Pure’ Trash, Party Planners Face Logistical
Nightmare

By STEPHANIE SIMON
June 25, 2008; Page A1

DENVER – As the Mile High City gears up to host a Democratic bash for
50,000, organizers are discovering the perils of trying to stage a
political spectacle that’s also politically correct.

Consider the fanny packs.

With biodegradable balloons and organic snacks, Denver Democrats hope to
stage the “greenest convention” ever. See examples.

The host committee for the Democratic National Convention wanted 15,000
fanny packs for volunteers. But they had to be made of organic cotton.
By unionized labor. In the USA.

Official merchandiser Bob DeMasse scoured the country. His weary
conclusion: “That just doesn’t exist.”

Ditto for the baseball caps. “We have a union cap or an organic cap,”
Mr. DeMasse says. “But we don’t have a union-organic offering.”

Much of the hand-wringing can be blamed on Denver’s Democratic mayor,
John Hickenlooper, who challenged his party and his city to “make this
the greenest convention in the history of the planet.”

Convention organizers hired the first-ever Director of Greening,
longtime environmental activist Andrea Robinson. Her response to the
mayor’s challenge: “That terrifies me!”

After all, the last time Democrats met in Denver – to nominate William
Jennings Bryan in 1908 – they dispatched horse-drawn wagons to bring
snow from the Rocky Mountains to cool the meeting hall. Ms. Robinson
suspected modern-day delegates would prefer air conditioning. So she
quickly modified the mayor’s goal: She’d supervise “the most sustainable
political convention in modern American history.”

Now, she must pull it off.

To test whether celebratory balloons advertised as biodegradable
actually will decompose, Ms. Robinson buried samples in a steaming
compost heap. She hired an Official Carbon Adviser, who will measure the
greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard, every plane trip, every
appetizer prepared and every coffee cup tossed. The Democrats hope to
pay penance for those emissions by investing in renewable energy
projects.

Perhaps Ms. Robinson’s most audacious goal is to reuse, recycle or
compost at least 85% of all waste generated during the convention.

The Trash Brigade

To police the four-day event Aug. 25-28, she’s assembling (via paperless
online signup) a trash brigade. Decked out in green shirts, 900
volunteers will hover at waste-disposal stations to make sure delegates
put each scrap of trash in the proper bin. Lest a fork slip into the
wrong container unnoticed, volunteers will paw through every bag before
it is hauled away.

“That’s the only way to make sure it’s pure,” Ms. Robinson says.

Republicans are pushing conservation, too, as they gear up for their
convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Like the Democrats, they’re cutting
down on printing by doing as much work as possible by email; using
recycled office furniture; and urging employees to walk or take public
transportation to work. The Republicans also encourage vendors to be as
environmentally friendly as possible.

But Matt Burns, a spokesman for the Republican convention, looks on with
undisguised glee at some of the Democrats’ efforts – such as the “lean
‘n’ green” catering guidelines.

Among them: No fried food. And, on the theory that nutritious food is
more vibrant, each meal should include “at least three of the following
colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white.” (Garnishes don’t
count.) At least 70% of ingredients should be organic or grown locally,
to minimize emissions from fuel burned during transportation. “One would
think,” says Mr. Burns, “that the Democrats in Denver have bigger fish
to bake – they have ruled out frying already – than mandating
color-coordinated pretzel platters.”

Democrats say the point is to build habits that will endure long after
the convention. To that end, the city has staged “greening workshops”
attended by hundreds of caterers, restaurant owners and hotel managers.
“It’s the new patriotism,” Mayor Hickenlooper says.

Laura Hylton, general manager of Biscuits & Berries catering, agrees in
principle. But she has been testing her recipes using local ingredients
for weeks and still can’t get the green peppercorn sauce right when she
uses white Colorado wine. The state’s high-altitude wine industry took
off in the early 1990s and produces some award-winning labels, but Ms.
Hylton says diplomatically, “It’s a little…lacking. Our wineries out
here aren’t what you’d see in California or France.”

Joanne Katz, who runs the Denver caterer Three Tomatoes, will take one
for the green team by removing her fried goat-cheese won tons with
chipotle pepper caramel sauce from the menu. But she questions whether
some of the guidelines will have the desired earth-saving effects.

Compostable utensils, she says, are often shipped from Asia on
fuel-guzzling cargo ships. As for the plates: “Is it better to drive
across town to have china delivered to an event and then use hot water
to wash it, or is it better to use petroleum-based disposables?” she
asks.

The convention’s greening gurus say they’re doing the best they can with
the most current information available.

Coors Conflict

But it’s almost inevitable that principles, politics and profit will
conflict. To wit: Coors Brewing Co., in Golden, Colo., will donate
biofuel made from beer waste to power the convention’s fleet of
flex-fuel vehicles. A green star for the convention – but it has
rankled die-hard liberals, who boycotted Coors in the 1960s and ’70s to
protest hiring practices that they said discriminated against blacks,
Latinos, women and gays. Heirs to the Coors fortune have long been
active in conservative causes and Republican politics.

Convention officials say Coors is a good corporate citizen. And a Coors
spokeswoman says the donation was a gesture of civic pride, not
politics.

No matter, grumbles Anna Flynn, a longtime union member from Denver who
objected to the donation. “Any way you put it, it’s still Coors,” she
says.

Chris Lopez, a spokesman for the host committee, says that securing a
diverse group of sponsors is as much about showcasing the regional
economy as promoting sustainability. He added that Democrats are nudging
sponsors to “think green” by participating in an eco-festival and
cutting back on paper fliers stuffed into delegate goody bags.

Watching the greening frenzy from afar, Fred L. Smith Jr., president of
the libertarian Washington think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute,
suggested the Democrats could really shrink their footprint by staging a
v
irtual-reality convention: &
quot;Just have everyone stay at home with their
laptops, sitting in their pajamas, interacting through their avatars.”

Ms. Robinson, the greening director, says big showy conventions are part
of the American political tradition, and thus worth a few emissions here
and there. Also, she hates to be a killjoy.

True, she did try (unsuccessfully) to get bottled water banned from the
convention hall. But remember those balloons? She checked the compost
heap last week – and found them still intact. She has added more liquid
to try to get them to degrade.

And if they don’t? “The balloons will be there,” she promises.

So will the fanny packs – made in the USA of undyed, organic fabric.
Mr. DeMasse vows to get a union shop to print the logo, but he says the
ink will be petroleum based. Unless, that is, he decides to get the logo
embroidered – with biodegradable thread.

Write to Stephanie Simon at stephanie.simon@wsj.com5

Photo courtesy of TrendySavers.com.