Events Can Get Stoked Too
After two years developing the STOKE Events standard, we are honored to announce our first certified member—the 2017 SHIFT Festival! You can learn more about the certification program on the STOKE Events page, our criteria, and SHIFT’s best practices here.
Full press release below:
SHIFT FESTIVAL IS THE FIRST STOKE CERTIFIED SUSTAINABLE EVENT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 21, 2017
Contact: Carl Kish | info@stokecertified.com
SAN DIEGO, CA – The fourth annual outdoor recreation and conservation conference, SHIFT Festival 2017: “The Business Case for Public Lands,” held in Jackson Hole, WY, has become the first certified sustainable event by STOKE Certified.
During the conference in early November, SHIFT was evaluated against 92 criteria and 303 compliance indicators by a local independent evaluator, Mac Dukart. The event achieved a compliance score of 79% across all four categories of sustainability performance, which is above the minimum threshold of 70% for STOKE Events certification.
Christian Beckwith, Director of SHIFT, stated “We have been working towards this goal for two years and we’re honored to not only have earned the recognition as a sustainable event, but to also be the first STOKE Certified Event. As the organization who developed the Principles for Advancing Outdoor Recreation and Conservation, working with STOKE to improve the environmental and social responsibility of our event was a perfect match and complementary to the evolution of SHIFT over these last few years.”
Chris Perkins, Marketing Coordinator for SHIFT, followed up by saying, “Thank you to all our vendors, attendees, advisors, volunteers, and especially our venues. We could not have done it without the support of the Center for the Arts, Snow King Resort, and the Pink Garter Theater. The sustainable event management tools and templates STOKE provided along with their expertise greatly reduced the barrier to entry and now we have a proven system we can replicate and enhance each year.”
SHIFT was the first Early Adopter of the STOKE Events program when they joined after the 2015 SHIFT Festival. From there, SHIFT prepared for a STOKE Benchmark at their event in 2016 where the team set goals to become a zero waste and clean energy event in 2017. Through STOKE’s collaborative approach to local stakeholder engagement with SHIFT, the event leveraged many community partnerships and national sponsors to reach their sustainability goals, including:
- Sourcing 100% renewable energy for the event through the Lower Valley Energy Green Power Program, which purchases clean energy from the Horse Butte wind farm south of Idaho Falls, ID and the Foote Creek wind farm between Rawlins and Laramie, WY.
- Through a partnership with Westbank Sanitation and Teton County Integrated Waste and Recycling, SHIFT recycled and composted all of its waste to become a zero-waste event. Klean Kanteen provided aluminum pint cups to all pass holders. Attendees who posted photos of themselves participating in zero waste efforts were entered into a raffle to win a jacket from local apparel company, Stio.
- The People’s Banquet sourced food from all local farms in Wyoming and Idaho thanks to a creative fermented approach to the menu from Slow Foods in the Tetons due to the time of year.
- SHIFT’s carbon footprint of 122.42 metric tons of CO2 included 5.65 tons of avoided CO2 emissions thanks to carpool strategies, zero waste efforts, and the Green Power program. The Scope 3 emissions of attendee and vendor travel, which made up 99% of the event’s emissions, are being offset through a reforestation project in the Rocky Mountain West through the National Forest Foundation (NFF). SHIFT’s donation will plant 213 trees on public lands in their backyard, which should sequester 123 tons of carbon over 100 years based on the types of species planted according to the NFF. SHIFT hopes to find a local verified carbon offset project in 2018.
- Over $27,000 in scholarships are offered to those in the Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) to cover the cost of attending the ELP and SHIFT Summit and 50% off tickets for the SHIFT Summit are offered to college students. Innovative nonprofit organizations that leverage outdoor recreation for conservation gains are honored as SHIFT Award Official Selections through the SHIFT for the Planet forum which helps connect these organizations with funding sources.
- SHIFT staff and volunteers educate surrounding communities about the importance of zero waste efforts at Teton Science Schools as well as the 100% Green Power adoption for local residents through Lower Valley Energy and Energy Conservation Works.
- Paperless ticketing, communication, raffling, and networking resources are all provided through the Whova App.
“As an event that mobilizes a national community of diverse and passionate individuals and organizations who are fighting to protect and enjoy our public lands, especially in today’s political climate, I couldn’t think of a better organization to launch with the STOKE Events program. I’m extremely proud of SHIFT’s commitment to the process over the last two years and look forward to seeing them progress from here,” said STOKE Certified Co-Founder, Carl Kish.
For a detailed list of their best practices with photographs, visit their STOKE Certified profile at https://www.stokecertified.com/members/shift/ or visit SHIFT’s website to learn more at http://shiftjh.org/
About STOKE Certified
STOKE (Sustainable Tourism Operator’s Kit for Evaluation) Certified is the world’s first sustainability certification program for surf and ski tourism operators, destinations, and affiliated events. Through its network of independent evaluators, STOKE verifies the legitimacy of sustainability claims and provides transparency for the public through its certification programs—STOKE Surf, STOKE Snow, and STOKE Events. STOKE has 19 members in 8 countries across all of its certification programs. For more information on STOKE’s members, sector specific tools and templates, and certification process, go to https://www.stokecertified.com/.