Event company’s diversion efforts generate $10k in value for local nonprofits, help the fight against hunger, divert 1,371 cubic feet from the landfill, and avoid 6.71 metric tons of CO2 emissions.

Production Glue, a live events company and participant in the Austin Materials Marketplace, is the recipient of this year’s BizBash Event Style award for Best Sustainability / Corporate Social Responsibility Program for an Event or Meeting for their 2017 SXSW activation for TNT’s Animal Kingdom. This is a big deal. Creating a fantastic event is hard work, and taking measures to be eco and communally conscious makes that job even harder. With the full backing of their client, Civic Entertainment Group, Production Glue went above and beyond, and with our help made a positive environmental impact, helped support our local community, and gained recognition as a sustainable industry leader.

As a company, Production Glue has helped set the standard for sustainable practices in the event industry. Sustainability is baked into every part of their process, touching materials choices, logistics, energy use, waste management, execution logistics and final reconciliation. But for a production company working on a national scale, finding local connections to make these goals a reality can be a real struggle. To help fill this gap, Production Glue worked with the Austin Materials Marketplace team early in the planning process of the Animal Kingdom activation to help identify local organizations that could take and benefit from materials from the activation, and easily track and report impact metrics from the effort.

Ian’s Giving Gardens and Frutas Frescas was one of the nonprofits that received materials from the activation. Ian McKenna, 12 years old, started his giving gardens to combat hunger in Austin. Any student who comes to school hungry has access to the organic and fresh produce from his gardens. Ian received picnic tables for his gardens to enable students to have lessons outside; tools to increase the yield from his gardens; and a new canopy that he uses to set up a mobile free produce stand in communities around Austin. All in all, seven Marketplace participants accepted around $10,000 worth of materials from Production Glue including furniture, equipment, decor, landscaping materials and more. The reuse of these materials avoided 6.71 metric tons of carbon emissions and diverted approximately 1,400 cubic feet of resources from the landfill.

The Austin Materials Marketplace is beginning to engage more with large events in Austin, in part due to Austin Resource Recovery’s efforts to engage city-wide events in zero-waste initiatives. As case studies like this show, reuse of event materials can create a tremendous community impact. If you’re planning now for SXSW ‘18 and know you’ll have bulky, hard-to-recycle materials left over, contact our team for assistance – we’re happy to help!

thought leadership