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Living Green
Expo
Minnesota's biggest environmental event in 2005
by Tim Miejan
Living Green Expo, Minnesota's largest environmental get-together, returns for its
fourth year to St. Paul on Saturday and Sunday, April 30 and May 1. The event features
hundreds of exhibitors, as well as speakers and workshops, all committed to offering
information, products and services to a public that is increasingly concerned about
protecting the planet.
Living Green Expo will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days in the Grandstand
Building on the Minnesota State Fair Grounds, 1265 N. Snelling ave., St. Paul. Admission
is free.
With its debut in 2002, Living Green Expo exceeded the expectations of state agencies,
non-profit groups and businesses that organized the state's first major exhibition
focused entirely on environmental protection, conservation and sustainability. With
little to no experience at creating or promoting such an event, organizers succeeded
in attracting more than 150 businesses and groups as exhibitors and nearly 5,000
people.
Four years later, an estimated 235 exhibitors and more than 12,000 people are expected
to attend Living Green Expo. It should come as no surprise that there is an eager
market for such an event. Minnesota statistically is one of the more environmentally
minded states in the nation. Its government programs on the environment are among
the most progressive, its citizens are among the best recyclers in the country, and
Minnesota is only second to Virginia in the number of hybrid cars sold per capita.
A significant opportunity
"I've never worked harder on anything in my life," says Ned Brooks, an
environmental planner with Minnesota Pollution Control and a key coordinator of the
expo. "It's been very rewarding to work with a variety of people on such a positive
event, something that we all had a vision to create. We've had a very positive response
from exhibitors and attendees. From an environmental perspective, this offers us
a significant opportunity to make a difference through individual choices."
Key players include several stage agencies -- Minnesota Pollution Control, the Office
of Environmental Assistance and the energy office within the Department of Commerce
-- as well as such non-profit organizations as the Alliance for Sustainability, Minnesota
Bike and Pedestrian Alliance, the Twin City Natural Food Co-ops and the Blue Sky
Guide.
"Living Green Expo and Blue Sky Guide started at the same time, four years ago,
and I think it was interesting because we both recognized this opportunity and this
need to look at and pull together all of the individual efforts out there in the
Twin Cities that are aimed at making Minnesota a healthy, more sustainable place
to live," says Katherine Mullen, Twin Cities director for Celilo Group Media,
a publishing and marketing consulting firm that expands the market for sustainable products
and services. It produces coupon books that support sustainable products and environmentally
conscious businesses in the Twin Cities (Blue Sky Guide) and the Portland, Ore.,
metro area (Chinook Book), as well as Sustainable Industries Journal. Blue Sky Guide
is used by schools
and community groups to raise money for projects and programs throughout the Twin
Cities, and it is available in more than 100 retail business in the metro area. In
partnership with Great River Energy, Blue Sky Guides will be given free to the first
200 attendees each day of Living Green Expo.
"Living Green Expo gives us the opportunity to pull together our message collectively,
which carries a little bit more meaning and is louder than each of us doing our individual
things," Mullen said.
All exhibitors are thoroughly screened to ensure they demonstrate that what they
offer promotes environmental values. Brooks said Expo organizers specifically target
who they want as exhibitors so aspects of society that have the biggest environmental
impact are well represented at the event. Those include representatives of the food,
transportation, energy and building industries.
Brooks notes that the expo will include a wide variety of the expected booths --
cleaning products, yard care and personal care products, and recycling and composting.
"Those are certainly important, but other areas like transportation, where you
can make a single decision about the kind of car you drive, has a huge environmental
impact. Food is another important area. We have more food-related exhibitors than
any other section. There will be 20 or so small farms that offer organic and sustainably
grown products."
Important to Minnesota
Sean Gosiewski, director of the Alliance for Sustainability, which helps people take
their first step at home, at work or in their neighborhood to live a more sustainable
life, says there are many reasons the expo is important to Minnesota.
"A lot of people have chosen to be more sustainable in a certain area in their
life, for example by starting to do recycling, but they still are working on how
to reduce their impact through transportation or through energy conservation or through
where they buy their food," he said. "So Living Green Expo is a great resource
for people who want to do the right thing to learn about how they can take action
in other areas of their life.
"The expo is also very important because there are a lot of businesses that
are trying to sell more sustainable products and services. They are often just getting
started and need a boost to generate more customers and to have their businesses
succeed. Living Green Expo is a very important opportunity for new green businesses
that are just starting up. The other thing we feel is very important is that the
Living Green Expo is generating a partnership between government agencies that are
concerned about sustainability and non-profits working on sustainability, as well
as the business sector. It's creating links between government, business and non-profits.
That really doesn't happen anywhere else right now in the Twin Cities, not as much
as you see at the Expo."
Gosiewski said that rarely do you see environmental groups working on different goals,
such as water protection or sustainable energy, under the same roof at the same time.
"It is a great opportunity and we feel like there is still a lot more potential
that we would like to see happen in future years," he said. "Right now,
the expo happens only once a year. People are seeking support to make these choices
throughout the year, both in terms of identifying businesses that would sell something
they're looking for and looking at having classes to learn these things throughout
the year."
Brooks said a long-range goal of Living Green Expo is to increase the market share
of environmentally preferable products, increase the number of people who are incorporating
environmentally friendly practices in their daily lives and help build support so
such practices are increasingly becoming the societal norm.
As for now, Brooks said Living Green Expo is hoping to appeal to "people who
value a healthy, clean, natural environment and who are willing to make changes in
their daily lives to improve the natural environment in their community."
"We're targeting people who have a green streak and who we want to act on that
value and do what they can to reduce their environmental impact," he said. "Collectively
we all have a huge impact on the environment. We often think of power plants and
industries and so forth as being the main polluters, and they are significant, but
all of us are driving our cars around, and all of us are consuming electricity that
is produced mostly from non-renewable and sources that are contributing air pollution.
If we can all reduce a little bit, then collectively we have a significant opportunity
to have a big effect."
Workshops and more
Last year, more than 2,000 attendees at Living Green Expo listened in on one or more
of the 70 workshops offered at the event. Many of the workshops are "how-to"
demonstrations: how to compost your kitchen and yard waste, how to evaluate if your
home is right for solar or wind power, how to improve the efficiency of the windows
in your home. Those who attend also will enjoy a food court featuring a wide variety
of organic and sustainably grown, locally grown, food.
The event is also attracting young students who hope to do more than have a good
time at the event.
"We're getting positive response from science and social studies teachers, teachers
who can actually assign extra credit for their students to attend the Living Green
Expo," Gosiewski said. Information on such projects are available on the Living
Green Expo website at www.livinggreen.org.
"As well, we'll be having students displaying some of their environmentally
oriented science projects at the Expo this year," he said.
Mullen, who has seen interest more than double in Twin Cities schools wanting to
distribute the Blue Sky Guide to support fund drives, said a desire to protect the
environment can become a life decision at a young age.
"Since I was a child, I've been interested in the environment and my impact
on the environment," she said. "I believe that living sustainably is about
all the little, individual choices we make every day. We have opportunities to make
choices that can treat the environment, our community, and each other with respect.
So it's about simple things, like eating locally grown foods, recycling, commuting
by bike, and things like maintaining a yard without chemicals -- things that are
good for the environment and also, obviously, our well-being. For me, it's a part
of my lifestyle."
Contacts:
Living Green Expo -- www.livinggreen.org
Alliance for Sustainability (612) 331-1099 -- allianceforsustainability.net
Blue Sky Guide (651) 698-5586 -- www.FindBlueSky.com
Tim Miejan is editor of Edge Life magazine. Contact him at (651) 578-8969, toll-free
1 (888) 776-5687 or e-mail editor@edgelife.net
Copyright © 2005 Tim Miejan, all rights reserved. |
| April 2005 |
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