In it’s third year, Opportunity Green is a two day inspirational conference focused on green business issues held in Los Angeles at UCLA. This is the second year I’ve attended. Last year was a bit of a lark for me. Some friends had recommended it and I knew both co-founders. I found myself registering at the very last minute. But I was blown away and left the event incredibly inspired. I return this year almost having missed it. Occurring just days before the Greenbuild Expo next week, I didn’t think I could manage two big events in the same week. So again, I've registered at the last minute, but I’m really happy I was able to work it out. Here's a quick run down of day one:
Swag Bag
I attend more than twenty conferences a year and receive a bag at each full of supposedly green products (supplied by the event sponsors) pulled together in a reuseable bag. By and large, the junk in those bags is the same no matter the event, are usually a waste of material, and the bag is anything but environmentally favorable. But Opportunity Green rethought everying. The bag itself is made by AdVinylize, a company that takes old billboard vinyl and crafts them into beautiful carry bags. I arrived early so I was able to pick out the exact bag I wanted. There are also a few items inside that are worth mentioning. First, is a KOR water bottle. I can't tell you how many junky plastic bottles I recieve at conferences. I've also recieved an aluminum bottle and a stainless one. Of them all, I prefer the stainless bottle, but I've never been totally happy with it. My metal bottles have a strange smell and taint the water's flavor. I've been wanting a KOR bottle, so I was please right away. Add to that a set of reuseable bamboo utensils in a recycled PET holster and belt clip. What a cool idea. I go to so many conferences where the food is accompanied with plastic knives, forks, and spoons. Some times they end up in a recycling bin, but most often they go to a landfill. This set by To-Go Ware can be used for this event and work well for someone who travels a lot and atends wasteful events, like me. Another great add was a reuseable towel to be used instead of paper towels or napkins. For the first time, I've gotten a great swag bag that actually holds great stuff.
Opening Session
I've been a fan of photographer Chris Jordan for a while, but I've never seen him present. His latest series that focuses on Midway Island are horrifying. When I first saw a few of the series on the web a week ago, I thought they were staggering, but to hear him present them and give the back story makes them almost hard to look at. For anyone not familiar, he photographed decomposing carcasses of baby albatross. The images are haunting, especially when you see that their stomach's were filled with plastic. Even worse is the knowledge that the stomach contents were fed to them by the bird's parents. These poor young birds must have suffered terrible short lives. I recommend everyone check out his photography. Chris Jordan is trying to make big numbers and big environmental issues tangible. He asks, can you imagine or visualize 20 million tons of anything? How about 40 million? 80 million? Each step is a two-fold increase, but can you really experience the difference? It’s hard for most people to experience that kind of information viscerally. Chris is trying to do that with his photographic experiments.
Breakout Sessions
By far, the best session of the day was one about storytelling from Annie Leonard and Jonah Sachs, the people behind the amazing web video Story of Stuff. If you haven’t seen it yet, stop reading this post and go watch it now. It’s so well done. The two of them told behind the scenes stories which made the video possible. In doing this, they also laid out a structure we should all consider for how to engage audiences of any size in a conversation regarding the state of the environment. For more than twenty years, Annie Leonard has been researching waste and consumption behavior. She had been presenting her findings for years, but didn’t feel she was connecting to her audiences. Changing her approach by making the story more approachable and connecting to human interest changed everything. Doing that eventually led to the film project that has been all the rage. It’s two years old, but still gets ten thousand hits every day. Annie and Jonah are about to release a book version and a follow up video. Both are due out soon, so keep your eyes open.
Other speakers and topics were Michael Hopkins with MIT Sloan, Len Sauers of Procter & Gamble, Zem Joaquin of Eco Fabulous, and others. It was a good first day. I’m looking forward to day two.
Written by Kevin O’Donnell, fundamentalist at thread collaborative. To read more, please visit our web site.
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