Gives Locally - Does your organization donate and/or volunteer for environmental and/or humanitarian organizations within your local community and beyond?
Net proceeds of Rock the Green benefit various environmental organizations in Milwaukee including the Urban Ecology Center and The Park People of Milwaukee County.
The Urban Ecology Center (UEC), which operates Environmental Community Centers in Milwaukee’s Riverside and Washington Parks has become a “home-grown” national model for urban environmental education. Serving over 60,000 visitors a year the UEC is known as a standard bearer for green living in the City. Rock the Green will help support and grow children’s education programs for underserved youth.
The Park People of Milwaukee County (TPP) provides eduction and public involvement in decision making concerning our parks through their mission: Citizen Stewardship of Milwaukee County Parks. Members have raised monies for public projects including historical preservation, public art restoration, parks improvements and public tree planting.
In addition, team members frequently accept speaking engagements to share our mission, goals and knowledge with relevant organizations.
Recycles - Does your organization recycle paper, plastic, glass, aluminum, batteries, electronics and fluorescent lights throughout the company, including public areas?
Rock the Green is a near-zero waste festival, therefore everything available at the event is either recyclable or compostable. The Near Zero Waste (NZW) team provides education and supervision of all waste reclamation stations ensuring items are collected and properly sorted into color coded Composting or Recycling bins.
All exhibitors and vendors must adhere to these requirements and participate in our efforts on-site.
Plastic water bottles will not be used at the event. Instead, BPA-free reusable water bottles are provided to every attendee as part of their ticket purchase.
Everything collected will be calculated to establish a measurable benchmark to improve future event planning efforts.
Rock the Green is introducing several new processes that will make it simpler to recycle more.
Single Stream Recycling: A user-friendly process that allows people to put recyclable materials together in a single bin. The sorting is done on high tech machinery after the bin is taken back to the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF).
National Universal Recycling Labels for Consumers: Recycle Across America™ is introducing a new recycling label program at Rock the Green that reminds us with color codes, images and words what goes in a specific bin at home or at a participating business.
Food scraps will be ground into a slurry through commercial grinders, placed into the municipal system and converted into fertilizer.
Lighting - Does your organization use high-efficiency lighting approved by Energy Star such as, T8s, T5s, LEDs, CFLs (>75%)?
Light emitting diode or LED lighting and video is used to minimize energy consumption, and provide longer lifetime.
Rock the Green event hours were specifically selected to ensure a daytime event to minimize the need for lighting.
Energy Reduction - Does your organization incorporate specific practices and equipment to reduce energy usage and waste, e.g. grocery store installs doors on all refrigeration areas, retailers install sky lights to reduce daytime electric lighting, office complex paints rooftop white to reduce the demand for air-conditioning usage, etc
The festival is taking place outdoors in September. The timing eliminates the need for any air-conditioning and heating systems to be utilized. Daytime event hours reduce the need for lighting. Exhibitors and vendors are encouraged to use non-powered tactics to educate and entertain using verbal education and hands-on demonstration instead.
Office Paper - Does your organization use post-consumer recycled paper throughout all office printers, fax machines & copiers?
Rock the Green organizers have proactively minimized the use of printed documents through web based applications and electronic documents. During the festival, no paper (brochures, flyers) will be distributed by organizers, exhibitors and vendors.
When printing is necessary for business documents in the office environment, post-consumer recycled paper is used.
Temperature - Does your organization manage temperature with an efficient programmable thermostat, adjust it to 68 degrees in the winter and 80 degrees in the summer, and reduce it to the greatest energy efficient setting possible during non-labor hours?
Rock the Green is an outdoor event held on September 18. Rock the Green does not have permanent office space, but works with organizations that share the same goals and practice energy efficient behaviors. Directors and volunteers have optimized the use of existing workspaces, and are constantly reviewing energy efficiency practices.
Transportation - Does your organization promote the use of and/or offer incentives for employees and visitors to use low or no CO2 transportation?
Rock the Green encourages carpooling, use of hybrids, public transportation, and bicycling to the event. Maps and transportation guides are provided on the website.
A free bike valet service is available for event attendees. Rock the Green worked with the local parking lot management to reduce parking fees. Those lots will offer half-price parking for hybrids and carpools. consisting of four or more people.
To further encourage biking to the event, Rock the Green is organizing a pre-event ride to Veterans Park and worked with local rickshaw company to offer services at no charge to attendees.
Hibernate Computers - Does your organization hibernate the computer monitors after 5 minutes without use and shut the computers down completely during non-work hours (with the exception of POS and/or unique computer systems that cannot or should not hibernate or shut down)?
Rock the Green does not have permanent office space, but Directors and Volunteers have implemented energy efficient practices in use of electronics and computer management at their remote offices. Computers used on-site at the festival will hibernate when not in use.
Unwanted Mail - Has your organization removed their name from unwanted: mail, mailing lists, phone book distribution and unwanted catalogs?
Rock the Green has not publicized it's mailing address and will remove name from unwanted lists if and when unwanted mail is received.
Rock the Green encourages the use of electronic and social media with everyone it works with as a standard operating procedure.
Conserves Water - Does your organization maintain plumbing to prevent leaks, drips and overall water waste? When replacements are necessary, do you install water conserving low-flow/high-pressure fixtures?
Rock the Green's Near Zero Waste Team is working with the production team to implement best practices in water management. Municipal water will be used at free and fresh water stations. Plumbing supervisors will review all water distribution systems and maintain systems throughout the event.
Bottled Water - If you offer plastic bottled water in your organization, do you recycle the bottles? Or does your organization offer and promote drinking water for employees and guests that is either packaged in plant-based bottles or filtered?
Free and freshwater stations are located throughout the event for attendee use.
Attendees receive a BPA-free refillable water bottle for use at the event and for future home use.
Water stations are metered in order to calculate the number of water bottles saved from landfill.
Buys Locally - Does your organization buy locally whenever possible (within a 100 mile radius)?
September in Wisconsin in the ideal time for sourcing local produce and our food vendors have committed to providing produce, dairy, meats and grains from area farms and co-ops whenever possible.
Gently used T-shirts donated locally are sold as event keepsakes instead of new. Recycled sail cloth is is used to create messenger bags by local vendor. Items are imprinted locally with eco-friendly inks. Bio-diesel distributor is just a few miles from the event. Compostable plates and napkins and electric production vehicles are manufactured locally.
Greener Products - Do you offer and/or buy organic, natural, sustainable, and/or renewable products and continue to look for ways to do so (> 20%)?
Event signage is made with biodegradable substrate and reusable.
Tents, bio-diesel generators, stage, forklifts and electric vehicles are rented and reusable. Bio-diesel is used for all power needs.
Event merchandise is selected based on use of organic and sustainable materials.
Standard operating procedures require every purchase or activity to be reviewed and replaced with it's organic, natural, sustainable or renewable counterpart where possible.
Promotes Progress - Does your organization encourage the employees, suppliers and others to also publicly communicate their efforts by publishing an eco-profile?
Rock the Green is sharing it's Eco-Profile and suppliers, volunteers and event attendees will be asked to publish their Eco-Profile and link to the Rock the Green profile to demonstrate support of their mission to Entertain, Engage and Educate!
Energy Audit- Has your organization had an energy audit within the past 24 months?
Rock the Green is in it's inaugural year and is an outdoor festival. A Near Zero Waste (NZW) Team has been engaged and will calculate and publish the event environmental footprint. These metrics will assist in establishing a baseline so future event planning efforts can be audited for Best Management Practices.
Alternative Energy - Does your organization incorporate the use of ultimate efficiency systems and/or alternative, renewable &/or sustainable energy resources e.g. solar, wind energy, geothermal temperature management, etc?
Rock the Green is powering the event with a combination of 100% B20 biodiesel generators, solar, and bicycle-power.
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