Washington, D.C. – November 22, 2010 Green Festival hosted more than 30,000 socially and environmentally conscious participants on October 23 – 24, to celebrate what’s working in regional communities and engage in solutions to create a cleaner, greener and more socially-responsible world.
A project of Green America and Global Exchange, two leading non profit organizations dedicated to environmental and social justice for more than twenty-six years, Green Festival serves as a foundation to explore and build sustainable solutions to benefit communities and the environment, discover new environmentally-friendly products and practices and connect with like minded individuals from all over the nation.
Green Festival stimulated the green economy by giving back $20,000 to more than 300 local, regional and national sustainable businesses through the new “GF Bucks” admissions policy.
Also, new this fall, Green Festival gave 10,000 free tickets, a $150,000 value, to local non profit organizations and asked community members to give back to their local communities in exchange for free admission.
Green Festival’s new admissions policy, “Pay it Forward, Get it Back at Green Festival,” engaged community members with 10 local non profit organizations to create year-round community engagement. These non profit allies engaged with new volunteers and donors by providing free Green Festival admission as incentive. The Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) raised over $800 in new membership fees through their promotional ticket offers.
“We are very excited to be a Green Festival nonprofit ally, and really appreciated tickets to reward our members and reach out to new people,” said WABA Membership and Development Coordinator Jenn Bress. “We marketed the promotion through Facebook, Twitter and the new WABA blog and as a result, recruited not only valuable funds to strengthen WABA, but most of all, a brand new generation of bicycling enthusiasts!”
Programming highlights of the weekend included inspiring presentations from Ralph Nader, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! and Corporate Innovator Ford’s Sustainable Business Strategies Director, John Viera. Participants had the opportunity to test drive Ford’s newest line of hybrid vehicles, including the Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid outside of the convention center.
Additional fun highlights included stellar performances from local musicians, a fun and interesting Old Timey Seed Swap in the Mother Earth News Fair Pavilion and stylish, high energy eco-fashion runway shows featuring adult couture, teens, kids clothing and green weddings.
Green Festival partnered with T-Mobile to recycle old, unused cell phones in exchange for free admission. T-Mobile representatives were thrilled to report that an impressive 960 cell phones were collected at Green Festival for recycling, as well as a large amount of phone accessories, such as wall and car chargers.
Recycling cell phones is incredibly important, as it aids the recycling of energy and preserves a significant amount of precious resource metals, including gold, silver, copper and palladium.
In a continuing commitment to green event management, Green Festival diverted over 8,000 lb. of waste over the weekend, for a 94% percent diversion rate. Only 540 lb. of waste went to landfill. In 2009, almost 15,000 lb. of waste was diverted and 1,000 lb. went to landfill.
The 2010 resource recovery rate from Washington DC Green Festival represents a sizeable decrease in the overall ecological footprint of the event and an encouraging increase in efficiency of waste management.
Special thanks to: Bgreen, Honest Tea, MOM’s, Corporate Innovator Ford andWUSA.
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About Green America
Green America is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1982, providing the economic strategies, organizing power and practicing tools for businesses and individuals to address today’s social and environmental problems. Its Green Business Network is the largest national network of businesses screened for their social and environmental responsibility. www.greenamericatoday.org
About Global Exchange
Global Exchange is a membership-based international human rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world. Since its founding in 1988, Global Exchange has successfully increased public awareness of root causes of injustice while building international partnerships and mobilizing for change. www.globalexchange.org
About Seven-Star, Inc.
Seven-Star, Inc. is the nation’s premier green full-service event company focusing exclusively on green events. Since 1999, Seven-Star has provided turn-key green event services for environmentally Responsible and socially Respectful (eR/sR) festivals, trade and consumer expositions, conferences and concerts. From the greening of the 2007 International Live Earth events, to the 2008 Democratic National Convention events, to producing the nation’s largest consumer Green Festivals, Seven-Star has defined itself as the company for eR/sR event production. Seven-Star is the first event company to have won the EPA’s Gold Waste Wise Award for Excellence in recognition for their proprietary system of event waste diversion, which has consistently achieved greater than 85%. www.sevenstarevents.com