Green Meetings / CSR | PlannerWire

A Sad Day for the Broadmoor

September 22, 2011 By Keith Johnston 1 Comment

Image: Jeffrey Beall

The famed Broadmoor Hotel located in beautiful Colorado has been sold. I have a lot of opinions about this and I am about to share them with you because we all need a little rant from time to time…..

I hope that this hotel is a financial boondoggle to the new owner, Philip Anschutz who will be forced to sell it to another group who will retain the staff and management so that they do not lose their jobs. I am sorry that I have to feel that way, but I do.

Philip Anschutz is, in my opinion, one the biggest scumbags on the planet, right up there with the Koch brothers and Charles Manson…. Again, that is my opinion and if you don’t like it, you may feel free to unfollow, unfriend and forget I exist because we certainly do not share the same “values”.

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Filed Under: Event Industry, Green Meetings / CSR

Don’t Fall for Greenwashing

September 21, 2011 By Keith Johnston 7 Comments

This is Greenwashing

I put this picture up on Google Plus yesterday and it is still bothering me so much that I decided to post my thoughts here, a larger audience for me than Google Plus.

My thinking was, how many times do the unsuspecting buy into the load of crap that companies in the industry are selling us. I snapped this image while I was at a Hilton in Chicago. This is the bottle of water that they serve.

One of our group said “Oh COOL” and I just sat and laughed and explained that this is the worst type of greenwashing there can be because it is so blatant and in your face.

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Filed Under: Event Planning, Green Meetings / CSR

The Hyatt Workers Strike – Meeting Planners Beware

September 20, 2011 By Keith Johnston 5 Comments

Image: Huffington Post

Hyatt was bitching because 3000 union employees went on a week long strike in Chicago Los Angeles, San Francisco and Honolulu after working without a contract for TWO YEARS. I am not surprised by Hyatt’s move and I am certainly not surprised by their response at the time, which was, typically corporate.

Here is what Hyatt Regency Chicago General Manager Patrick Donelly had to say:

“Unfortunately, this work stoppage could have been avoided if the local union had accepted the identical wage and benefits package they already accepted from Hilton, Starwood and InterContinental,” he said. “It is unclear why the union is refusing to help give our associates the benefit increases they have earned and deserved….We look forward to a quick resolution to this action so our associates can return to work as some of the best paid hotel associates in the city.”

Now, call me crazy, but I am not sure that this is an accurate representation of what the union and its members were striking about. What they were striking about in addition to pay, is working conditions and the rampant outsourcing that is taking place in the hotel industry… ergo, the meetings industry.

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Filed Under: Event Industry, Green Meetings / CSR Tagged With: hotels, Resorts

When Your Meetings and Events Cause Harm By Doing Good

July 27, 2011 By Keith Johnston 35 Comments

Meetings Industry Hotels and Associations

Photo: Pierre Tourigny

This is a post that I have been working on for about a month and I will be honest and say that I have been a little apprehensive in posting this because I was / am concerned about the backlash that I would receive. In the end, I have never been one to back down from anything….but still………..I did think about it for a couple of minutes.

Then, i got a tweet that made me say, “now is the time”…..

Inspiring my ass, this little tweet hit me like a ton of bricks, let me tell you why.

It hit me because of what I see as our industry hypocrisy. I hope you are ready because although I see some really good stuff going on in our industry, I still see a lot of bad……let me explain.

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Filed Under: Green Meetings / CSR Tagged With: Politics

Every Event Can Change the World

July 7, 2011 By Keith Johnston Leave a Comment

There are some people that I like without ever meeting them in person. You know those people….some are famous like Walter Cronkite, Jerry Garcia, Tom Hanks or Rachel Maddow… all seemingly good people that you would want to have a conversation with and maybe a beer or two.

Then there are the people that we interact with online in our social media circles, the people that strike you as being sincere and passionate about what they do, the people that really want to make a difference.

Peter Straube is one such guy who has come across my radar lately.

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Filed Under: Green Meetings / CSR Tagged With: Change, csr

Ridiculous Packaging – Stop it Now

May 26, 2011 By Keith Johnston Leave a Comment

OK, so I am driving across the great state of Indiana a few weeks ago and I stop at a Starbucks to grab a Venti Coffee. My traveling companions, including a 5 year old with a sweet tooth the size of My Everest spy the little carrot cakes and climb all over themselves to be the first one to order. I myself wait for them to finish because I know that there will be more than enough to go around.

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Filed Under: Event Planning, Green Meetings / CSR Tagged With: Event Planning, Packaging

My Best Experience in Guadalajara

May 18, 2011 By Keith Johnston Leave a Comment

Over the next couple of weeks, I plan to go in depth into my recent Site Chicago educational experience in the amazing city of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, those should be some great posts pointing out the good the bad and the ugly of the city and the experience. What I am pleased to announce is that the positives FAR outweigh the negatives and in fact, the bad things I will have to say are probably just my (sunburned) bitchy self and will have no impact on whether you do a program in this great metropolis (which you should).

I do however, have a best experience and it has nothing to do with the amenities, the venues, the transportation, the food or anything that would remotely affect your meetings or events. It really has to do with the people that we met, specifically the children and the people that take the time to educate them.

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Filed Under: Green Meetings / CSR, Industry Events Tagged With: csr, Mexico, Site Chicago

Green Meetings and Conferences – Earth Day 2011 and We are Failing

April 29, 2011 By Keith Johnston 3 Comments

Last week saw another Earth Day come and go. I won’t say it was a happy Earth Day because we are still failing badly as an industry.

This is a rant. This is a rant at all of you that are doing nothing.. just sitting and waiting around for someone else to do something about greening our industry. I am disappointed in most of you and would like to say thank you to the ones that are trying hard.

I know that the folks that are trying hard sometimes feel that there is so little progress it makes them want to bang their collective heads against the wall. To all of those that are really making an effort and watching as everyone else slacks off, consider this thanks a pillow you can stick to your forehead, it won’t make you stop banging, it will just make it a little less painful.

To the rest of you… shame on you. We, as meeting and event professionals have done nothing to help the people that are trying to move our industry forward and ensure the survival of or our children or grandchildren. I will not even mention great grandchildren because, frankly, we will probably not make it that long at the rate we are going. Have a look at the Wikipedia article on Global Warming for some really scary stuff.

As a nation, we elect useless leaders, we fail to educate our children and we treat the planet like it is a freaking takeout joint that has a never ending supply of resources. How much take out are we going to consume before they have to close the restaurant? Only time will tell but we can see it happening everyday.

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Filed Under: Green Meetings / CSR Tagged With: apex, csr, green meetings