Nancy Zavada - Designing Events That Leave an Impression, Not a Footprint

[00:00:10] Christy: Welcome to Green Champions.

[00:00:11] Dominique: Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people sharing sustainability success stories.

[00:00:16] Christy: This podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant new ideas. I'm Christy. 

[00:00:21] Dominique: And I am Dominique. 

[00:00:22] Christy: Today we're back with Nancy Zavada and we're learning more about her impact on the meeting and events industry. Nancy's the president and founder of MeetGreen. You can listen to the last episode and learn a little bit more about her background, but today we're gonna be focused on the events industry where she's been in for 30 years at MeetGreen, 10 years before that. She's been in this and seen so many different things changing over time and seeing how events have become more sustainable. And Nancy's been the queen at the helm of this rings for some while. So, Nancy, welcome back. We're so excited to have you again.

[00:00:55] Nancy: Ah, thank you. Can't wait to share more stories. 

[00:00:58] Dominique: Well, Nancy, for some of our listeners who have not listened to your previous episode, which hopefully they're gonna click and go do that right now, but can you explain for us what MeetGreen does?

[00:01:08] Nancy: MeetGreen is a sustainable event agency. We do sustainable meetings, but we do two different things. We plan them logistically from start to finish, we incorporate sustainable practices into all of our planning. But we also work with large corporations that have their own planning team. And we just add to that by using our sustainability consultants that go in, help them, mentor them, sometimes push the envelope with them and really use those large corporations buying power. So we've got both and it's interesting because sometimes our sustainability team will say, oh look, you should be able to do this. And then they'll ask our conference management team, and they're like, "That's not possible. What are you talking about? You're crazy." So we're our own focus group, if you will. And I think that what, we're one of the few firms that actually has both and it's great to be able to learn from each other in that practice. 

Will you tell us a little bit more about your team? There is just eight of us, plus we have subcontractors because we need to be able to scale. And we have, it's broken up into the conference management team and into the sustainability consulting team. The sustainability consulting team does more of, well along with the mentorship and working with our larger clients, they do a lot more carbon accounting. The conference management team is actually planning your logistics every day with all your vendors, registrations, speaker management, the full gamut. And those are pretty much four and four plus subcontractors that we work with.

[00:02:47] Dominique: Yeah. And so when you've got those large events where you're helping logistically and doing the measurement, your whole team in some ways are playing a part in that role. And how broad is your client base? When we think about, are you working on international events, national events? Tell us about that.

[00:03:03] Nancy: Also, yes. We work internationally. We've been in Singapore, Denmark, Brazil, Columbia. We work all around. We work internationally, plus we work all around the country as well. Just depending on where our clients want us to go. We work on events probably as small as 300- 500, and our largest event that we do consulting on is 60,000 people.

So it really runs the gamut for us. 

[00:03:31] Dominique: Wow. Is there a favorite that comes to mind, either because you were just so proud you pulled it off or because it was just so fun? Is there one that stands out to you as a favorite?

[00:03:41] Nancy: Oh, I don't know if I'm supposed to name names, but I really like ReFED. I'm just all about the food waste. I'm just so excited to be working with them on that, and I think that as planners, we can make a huge dent in that. The amount of food waste that goes on for events is crazy and we're continuously working towards that and they are so ambitious and have such great idea.

We're learning from them. They have great ideas, so it's a wonderful partnership.

[00:04:09] Christy: I can just say having attended that, I guess, I think every year, except for maybe one I missed. But going back to saying, you mentioned in a previous episode that maybe your events aren't like a party. And I was like, no, there, there's a party aspect to it. There's a party aspect to it.

And I will just share that you've done some interesting, innovative things that as a participant at an event, as a conference attendee, there have been interesting ways to get engaged with the food and the conference experience that keeps me energized and headed to the next thing.

 When you started your career or started MeetGreen and how events showed up then versus how are they showing up now, what has that change been like?

[00:04:54] Nancy: They are a lot more sustainable now. So there's a couple, couple stories that I have here. People always thought that a sustainable green event is like eating granola on a burlap bag, right? So I tell the story. I was flying across the country and I wanted a cup of tea. So my tea came in a styrofoam cup with a plastic stir stick and a sugar packet.

And it was just, it was not good. So on the way back, I got upgraded. And so there I was upgraded and I asked for a cup of tea. It came in a little China cup. It came with a tiny silver spoon and a sugar cube. That airline was not doing that to be sustainable? No. I was in first class. So I try to remind people all the time that first class is sustainable.

Back in the elegant era of the twenties and thirties, it looked different. It was so glamorous and it that doesn't have to go away today. People like to be not served on a paper plate. So anyway, that's my first, one of my reasons why it doesn't have to look a certain way. And when you're talking about food waste, a lot of our industry really believes hospitality means excess.

And it's as difficult to change the vendors of the caterers as to change other people's minds as well 'cause they think if the food runs out, then that's not a good look. And I, I'm not saying the food has to run out, but I am saying let's talk about maybe serving seven items on a buffet instead of 20 items that have to be replenished.

And then also educating people, the first person through the buffet and the last person, it's not gonna be the same. But you're gonna get fed and it's gonna be just fine. So the shrimp boat has to last till the very end, or whatever it used to be is just, it's not true anymore.

And we do a little thing that we, a little activation we like to do called the Clean Plate Club. This is an idea for my dad. So if you go through buffet, you take what you can eat, and at the end, instead of them just taking your plate away, you go to a plate scraping table and you give back your plate. If your plate is empty, you get a little sticker or a little token or something to go on your badge and you're gonna be there the full week.

Right? So you got, I had a clean plate just like when you were a kid. And so people start and by the end of the week, people are looking for how many badges you have and people are really realizing that they don't need to take a mountain of food. It's gonna be all right. And one of the things that I learned from a U.S Food Waste Pact.

A case study too was people are not eating the dinner rolls on a table, so let's cut back on some of those, put five on a table of 10. If they need more, they'll ask for more. I mean, there's so many things to cut back on food waste without anybody noticing.

[00:07:44] Dominique: Yeah, I think you just gave us like 10 nuggets of really important knowledge and I love that note about like that really important rebrand around sustainability. I'm really grateful you mentioned like hospitality gets connected to excess because I think that's something I personally have really struggled with.

I think you framed that so well around, like, thinking about first class and some of these things that we are so accustomed to having a certain kind of idea around. And somehow, it has disconnected from what sustainability is coined as. And I'm really glad you just kind of brought it home and rebranded that for us again.

And I also like the creativity around connecting engagement for adults in some of these shared spaces with how we engage kids in classrooms and teach them good behaviors. And I think that's really creative. And I'm really curious, you touched on a few different ways to think about these things.

You've pointed out some common issues that we have in these. But how have those conversations really played out for you? So I'm curious when you're talking to the event organizer, when they are in that more or less like traditional way of being, let's say, of wanting to have 20 menu items thinking that sustainability is gonna result in inconvenience.

Walk us through how you've successfully incorporated activations like that and how you've allowed those conversations to be productive.

[00:09:01] Nancy: We always look for the champion. There's always a champion on every crew, whether that's the lead or someone else. So we always make sure that we can find that person and really talk to them about change management. And education is vital. I think a lot of what's missing is the education of people that hospitality does not have to look like that. You don't eat like that at home. So let's be reasonable and let's tell them what we're doing on their behalf. I mean, share it on a walk-in slide or share it in a communication or social media. Look what we saved by being able to minimize that. If we run out of food of the last three people, here's your coupon to go to a restaurant. It's something to be awarded, not looked as that the client is cheap or that they're not being considerate of you or any of those things. In fact, the actual opposite is true.

[00:09:57] Dominique: And at that time, I'm also curious, how did they come into that conversation? So, I think it makes a lot of sense that you've looked at champions and change makers and looked a lot at like educating first and making sure that we're speaking around the same language and the same definitions. But maybe I'm curious like, what is their point of view kind of before you have that conversation?

[00:10:19] Nancy: Well, I think the excess is thriving, but in today's world of budgetary constraints, think how much they can save. What if you have a lunch that you're guaranteeing for, let's just say 150 people and only a hundred show up because you've given them enough time to go to a local restaurant or have lunch with friends.

So 50 people, let's say 50 people don't show up, but you've already guaranteed that economically. So what's a lunch? $35, at least, plus plus? Plus service charge, plus tax. Look at what you're able to save on your conference budget by really tracking your history, knowing how money might show up, knowing where you are.

Is it everything walkable? What do people usually do? By really watching that, you can minimize those numbers and then you're talking economic savings for people who might not be interested otherwise. Business case is huge. I shouldn't say just in today's world, but it is. And so, we go through all the steps to make sure that it makes sense to them.

[00:11:26] Christy: Nancy, I'm curious about pushing back a little bit and I want to hear some of your thoughts on this because we've even worked together on sustainable events and still hearing that the first guest does have to have the same experience as the last guest. And I do think that that budget conversation is really helping, like the details are really helping 'cause people aren't seeing things on the guest experience sometimes, in a way. How do you change those minds? How do you help them see, because it's embedded in almost the DNA of working in food services. That is what it is. And having been there myself, and I'm on the sustainable side of this, but I still have that part in me that I'm thinking about events and if I run out of food, I still get all nervous and my body has a physical reaction of tidying up.

So like, how do you have some of those key conversations that is above and beyond some of those champions to really get them to say, "No, we can do this and this is how and why"?

[00:12:26] Nancy: I think that's why bringing them forward into today's world is it can still be elegant. You can have some really nice seven things on a buffet that you might not be able to have otherwise for cost and just availability. But really having them consider what it looks like and having them consider what it looks like now.

I mean, look at radical transparency of social media. If you are wasting food, it does not look good. And certainly donating to food banks, to local organizations is great, but you should first always reduce. And so we, we really talked to them about that. We talked to them about how we're gonna educate the guests attending so they're not gonna be surprised.

They know what they're up for. They know how important it is. But you've gotta work on the education for them, with them, otherwise you are leaving them out. Oh, this hotel, this caterer, they didn't have enough food. Well, no, that's what we did. This is the role you're playing in that. This is what it's like to be in a big family.

The pork chops might all come around, but if you're not the first person having a pork chop, there'll still be a pork chop at the end, but it's not gonna look the same. That's life, that's sharing. That's what we're up for.

[00:13:42] Christy: And Nancy, I know you have a ton of statistics and things too that you gather at these events. What are some of those things? What are some of those data points and how do you use them in your conversations and changing minds with people in the industry, whether it's the guests or on the back of the house, if you will?

[00:14:00] Nancy: We are proud of our track record. We've been tracking our savings, sustainability savings since 2007. And we have, that we know of, I think it's more, but we've saved $7.8M for clients during that time, just in things that we've been able to mentor and do. That is a huge cost savings.

But we also count what we've been able to save in food. What we've been able to save. Let's just look at Swag the all conferences that have Swag. What if everybody doesn't need another tote bag? What if we put on the registration form? Do you need another tote bag? What if we say we're not going to have additional tote bags, bring an old one that you may have from a conference from years and years ago and we're gonna have a game.

Who's got the oldest tote bag? I mean, work with those 'cause if you look at something like Swag, you've gotta order it. It's gotta get there. Shipping freight has gotta get moved from wherever the freight warehouse is to the meeting place. Then you've gotta have people sort or stuff or whatever, so you've got more labor and then you move it there. And then if they all don't get picked up, then you've gotta find, they gotta get moved to a donation stream, hopefully. And that all costs money. I mean, we don't need that much.

One client we had did instead of another water bottle or another bag, you got a little stone when you checked in. And then there was three different jars and you could put your stone in the community charity that you wanted to give money to. So you could vote with your money and put it in there and then the corporation gave to the charities the amount of stones that were in each one. Still feeling like people got to do something, got to do something for their community. And instead of just like, oh, I didn't get a whatever it was that year. So it's really important how we're able to do that.

So just like I was talking about the food, we share with our clients what they're able to save if they can get their guarantees closer. What can we save if they're not have so much Swag? One of the things that we do is we try to not have aisle carpet in an expo. Right? That saved us $2.5M last year for one of our larger clients because it was a huge exhibit. The vendors still have carpet in their booth, so even more reason to step into their booth, rest your feet, but you don't need it. And we did a survey after it, actually, the survey just came out a couple weeks ago. Nobody complained, nobody noticed. And carpet oftentimes doesn't get recycled and it just gets put in the dumpster.

So then you're paying dumping fees to have it taken away. But what a great way to do it. Or if you're in a venue that has carpet already, please don't put more carpet down on top of that.

[00:16:46] Dominique: For someone who's not as familiar with the decision making behind putting carpet into an expo hall, what is the reason they tend to do that? And are you saying that it's always tossed afterwards? It's custom done for every conference?

[00:17:01] Nancy: I don't know what the percentages on that but a high percentage. More and more, they're starting to roll it up and reuse it. But if it's been cut at all, they can't reuse it, if there's staining. But if it is a custom color, a lot of events brand theirs, you can't reuse it. So it's a high percentage that of the carpet that just gets tossed.

[00:17:22] Dominique: Wow. And then what is the reason that usually, like, you mentioned comfort. Is it supposed to be easier on you to walk around?

[00:17:29] Nancy: Mm-hmm. It's just, it's back to the luxury, a red carpet that you're walking down between the booths. I mean, it's back to that perceived amount of luxury and graciousness. But like I said, the survey, they didn't even notice. We thought that it would be higher, that people noticed and complained, but they didn't.

[00:17:47] Dominique: Personally, if you asked me right now which of the events I've attended had carpet and which ones didn't, I could not tell you I would've noticed. So I think that's such a great point of something that has high impact is not only a big budget contributor, but environmental impact contributor. And the fact that most people, I think, don't even notice. I think that like I would consider myself an average attendee where I don't even pay attention. And so it's not having that much of a perceivable benefit. And I'm glad you mentioned that. 

[00:18:17] Nancy: We always look to reduction first. Recycling, fine. Donation, fine. But we really look to reduction first. That saves time. That saves money.

[00:18:26] Dominique: And speaking of reduction, you mentioned in our last episode. We talked a little bit about the impacts of COVID on your business, on the industry broadly. And you hinted that that was ultimately a very positive thing when reflecting on impact. Can you tell us more about that and maybe get into some of the data points you have?

[00:18:46] Nancy: Sure. The impact as we see it today is that, I think I read that 70% now of meetings are, they're looking at regional meetings. So the idea behind that is people don't have to travel as far. It's a smaller group, but you're still getting to network, you're still getting to do your thing, see people talk to people, but you can get home quicker. You're not so long in the air. Maybe your base is really located in one area. So if you're not gonna do smaller regional, really look at where your base is and how far people have to travel. The virtual, what if you can't travel? What if economically you can't travel?

What if you're taking care of kids or parents and you can't travel? What if you wanna be home to see your child's soccer game, basketball game that evening, and you don't wanna be gone? I mean, that's a benefit to the attendee, as well as a huge cost savings for the corporation. And COVID really brought that more to light.

Then Nancy, I think I remember you saying that during COVID, y'all created a, an uncalculator? Is that what that was? Tell us more about this carbon uncalculator So what we always do in our meetings is we track the carbon for the ones that the sustainability consultants do. And tell people how much carbon has been consumed for their meeting. Between 85 and 90% of all the carbon is from air travel. So we know that and so we really work hard to show that.

So when all of a sudden people weren't meeting and we're like, oh, what do we do now? We just reversed that. We said last year you had 20,000 people, they flew from here to there, and this is the amount of carbon that was used. That's the amount of carbon you saved this year by not bringing all those people there during COVID. And this is what you can put directly on your corporate responsibility report, is you saved this amount of carbon emissions.

So it just, it was just the same thing, only backwards. And we always ask all of our clients for their registration data and then we run that through a calculator as well to know where people come from, was it one hop, two hop, and the whole thing so that we can get a pretty accurate, I mean, it's still not perfect, but it was pretty accurate.

[00:21:03] Dominique: I'm really curious from your point of view, looking ahead, where do you see the next major shift? Where do you see the next big need for change from where you sit with your knowledge of the industry?

[00:21:16] Nancy: I really think that we're onto that and now I think that the regional meetings are something that really makes sense. It makes sense from a food perspective. You can use local seasonal food. It makes sense from travel. And there's a type of event called Hub and Spoke, where you have a national, international, speakers come in to all those different, if you hold 'em all at the same time, all those different events, which is called Hub and Spoke. So you have a speaker come in, then maybe you do breakouts, if you wanna call 'em that, for each one and discuss really what's happening on the regional level or discuss the national topic. But they're all meeting, they're all getting to gather and come back virtually to talk about it. And I think the Hub and Spoke design really is going to save money, is gonna save time.

And I think that the meetings are gonna go that way. There's so many reasons why they should, even just budget perspective.

[00:22:11] Christy: Well, I think that, Nancy, we've learned so much from you today and in so many ways we have so much more of a conversation to have, but we're just out of time. And that's so unfortunate. But it's been such a fun conversation and I just wanna share a few points. And I wanna share a few points from a client perspective that you mentioned at different things that, at one point, savings in food cost reduction was a 7.8 million benefit for those clients.

The reduction in aisle carpet last year was 2.5 million. So if you're looking for a reason, if you're listening for this, either as a planner or as an attendee, there are ways to think about how you attend events and how what you're asking for at events. But Nancy, that has been so wonderful and educational and interesting conversation with you today.

Thank you so much for that.

[00:23:00] Nancy: Oh, thank you.

[00:23:02] Dominique: Yeah. Thanks Nancy. This has been awesome. I think something has stuck out to me, was the framing of sustainability has gotten the wrap of like eating granola on a burlap bag. I think that is amazing. I wish that could be the title of the episode. But I think you paralleled that directly with first class.

Which also I really liked because in our last episode we talked about how you might have been, wanted to be a flight attendant. And I just think you really know how to weave a story together. But I think that that was awesome because those are two very clear images for us to traditionally feel very disconnected and you reminded us that those are both sustainability. And I really appreciate that. How can our listeners support you and connect with the work that you're doing?

[00:23:44] Nancy: I think if they can just be aware. Whether they're planning events, whether they're hosting events. Anybody in sustainability should be looking at their own events. Just be aware, see what you can do differently. See what you can do better. See how you can really show the people who are attending your events, what you're up for.

[00:24:02] Dominique: If they wanna give you a call and reach out to you, what's a good email address?

[00:24:05] Nancy: It's just nancy@meetgreen.com. I would love to have conversations and share more stories.

[00:24:11] Dominique: Amazing. Thank you so much, Nancy, for joining us and having these wonderful conversations. It's been awesome.

[00:24:17] Nancy: Thank you. 

[00:24:18] Christy: always remember that here at Green Champions, each guest brings a different approach to sustainability. And our goal is just to highlight what everyone's doing and inspire others because climate action takes so many different forms.

[00:24:30] Dominique: As always, you can find our episodes and support the show at thegreenchampions.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow, subscribe, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Stay connected to us on LinkedIn and Instagram, @greenchampionspod. Our music is by Zayn Dweik. Thanks for listening to Green Champions.

We'll be back next time with another sustainability success story.