Romina: Eco-Friendly Events

MUSE recently caught up with Romina, the founder of Eco Friendly Events based in Toronto, Canada.  Romina is a sustainability consultant, environmental expert and advocate.

Romina always knew that after her degree at McGill she wanted to work in the "environmental field," and shortly after completing the Event Management program at George Brown College, she started working at music festivals, and realized just how much trash was leftover after the events.

Romina started Eco-Friendly Events as a way to collaborate with event planners and industry partners in developing, executing and evaluating event sustainability plans to create eco-friendlier events.

When events paused in 2020, Eco Friendly Events broadened their scope to support values-based entrepreneurs in navigating their way into becoming greener businesses.  

Romina, nice to chat with you.  Tell us more about Eco Friendly Events.

Thanks for having me. I’m the founder of Eco Friendly Events. I started the company because I saw a disconnect between events and environmental sustainability, and I wanted to do something about it. 

My business is relatively new. I started it in 2019 tackling mostly festivals, because that's where most of my background was. But, of course event planning is very similar across the board, so the same solutions can be applied to other events as well.

Today, we're going to touch upon the values of an organization. How do values impact sustainability choices?

Whether it's the event organizer, or the host, or it's the business owner, we figure out what's important to them when it comes to sustainability.  Everyone's values vary greatly, in general, including when it comes to sustainability. For example, I value items that are built to last.  Something I can use over and over again, where somebody else may prefer something that's bought locally, or something that's made of an eco friendly material. So we figure out what those things are, and narrow it down.  Then we figure out if it’s within their budget, or within their resources, or if could it be obtained through the people in their network. How do we tackle these specific points for your event, for your business right now? And then how do we continue to improve this month after month, and year after year.

Do budget issues come up?

I think the one roadblock that comes to mind first and foremost is that everyone thinks that being eco friendly means spending more money. For certain things, yes. There are reasons for this, including fair wages being paid to employees. So that also increases the cost of things. If something is made locally, then you're paying somebody the local minimum wage versus that minimum wage overseas, which tends to be less.

There's a couple places in Toronto where you can rent a gown or a dress for the evening, so you don't have to buy something new. It's things like that where you’re not spending more money to be greener. There are different ways to navigate environmental sustainability and that's what I'm here to do - to help you navigate.

There’ve been studies and research that people are willing to pay more for something that is eco friendly.  Personally I’ll buy something that is more expensive, because I know that it’s gonna last me a long time. It's made by people who were paid fair wages. At the end of the day, I end up saving money in the long term. And I think that's sort of the focus that people need to think about is that, yes, you can actually charge more for the event, if you're also advertising and marketing sustainability,  and showing people why the ticket costs more. Transparency is key, people want to know.

Things might be a little bit different when we come out of this pandemic, but you can ask attendees to bring their own things, like for example, at festivals that I've worked at, there's water refill stations, and you can bring your own water bottle, it just has to be empty when you're coming into the space; they check this at security. But then guests use their own water bottle to refill at the water station. And that costs the organizer nothing.  So there are ways to do good things while saving money.

Do your clients get overwhelmed about sustainability?  Do they feel like being sustainable is an all or nothing scenario?

Definitely, many clients and people apart of the Eco-Friendly Events community are consistently overwhelmed about environmental sustainability. The beauty of Google is the accessibility to a ton of information, the downside is that there’s just so much of it! It can be a lot to digest, especially with conflicting information and so many more “eco” brands emerging.

For me and here at Eco-Friendly events, it's definitely not all or nothing. I believe incremental changes with positive impact. When approached and working with overwhelmed clients, I first ask them to take a deep breath, and take a step back. We take an inventory of what they have, and focus on using those things. For example, if you already stockpiled a bunch of dishwashing liquid, use all of it before you make a green swap by purchasing a dishwashing block. It’s about taking it one step at a time, that's what I did in my personal life and continue to do in my business as well.

I started making green purchases, and I was able to figure out what worked for me and what doesn’t. If it doesn’t, then I'll find something else. It starts with using what you have and once you’ve run out, only then make new purchases. Remember what your values are and keep going back to them. When thinking about a purchase, as yourself if the company aligns with what you believe? And if they do, then support them. And if they don't, then there's a million other companies out there that are doing something similar.

What’s something you are excited about when events come back? 

I'm actually excited to hug people again.  But I'm also really excited for live events to come back. We all miss that human connection. But I think with the pandemic, everyone's been hyper aware of their health, first and foremost.  But also an awareness of the environmental effects of everything, and how this ultimately impacts our health, like water pollution, air pollution, etc.  So because of that hyper awareness and consciousness, I feel like we're definitely moving into that direction in the events industry, how can we be more conscious consumers and event planners.

That's where it starts. If you're aware, you can be more eco friendly, and then you've already accomplished step one.

Website: www.ecofriendlyevents.ca

Instagram: @ecofriendly.events

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/eco-friendly-events/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/EcoFriendly.Events/