Forbo surprised everyone today by announcing that they won't be attending Greenbuild this year - not in the usual tradeshow sense anyway; they'll be there all right, but with the lowest carbon footprint at the conference.
Forbo's announcement is very timely, just last week Treehugger wrote an article on using Life Cycle Analysis and video conferencing to lower emissions.
According to Forbo's press release, their booth is taking on a minimalist approach, focusing primarily on the floor. Local reps will be there for the face-to-face, but the hometown executives who usually would be burning up air miles, hotels and cars will be chatting virtually via Internet video conferencing. When it's time to go home, the flooring materials that were sourced through their local Boston distributor, will be donated to a local charity. By using local and leaving local, Forbo is minimizing the shipping impacts to and from the convention center.
"I think this is the way the tradeshows of the future should be run," Denny Darragh, the GM of Forbo told me recently, "I have meetings with people virtually all day long. Why not do it at a tradeshow as well"?
If you're heading to Greenbuild, be sure to stop by and talk to the talking heads who will be walking the walk and boothing the booth.
Contributed by Mary Hunt.
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