Explosion of expos

The local home show has long been a staple of home improvement professionals at convention centers around the country. I bought my first ladder at a home show, myself. But there is a new, eco-friendly twist to the phenomenon: the green expo. More and more of these are popping up. Consider these events, to pick a few:

• Living Green Expo, in southern New Jersey.
• Northern Green Expo, in Minneapolis. 
• Go Green Expo, in seven-plus cities, including New York.
• Idaho Green, in Boise.
• Greenbuild, in Phoenix in 2009, Chicago in 2010.

If you are thinking about exhibiting at one of these events, whether a trade show or a home show, your cred goes up if you keep your own booth as environmentally friendly as your product. To that end, here's some advice for attending green shows:

• Make sure give-aways are actually likely to be useful, and make them from recycled materials. Use canvas bags, not plastic.
• Give out information on CDs or flash drives. If you have to use paper, use recycled paper and avoid coatings that are hard to recycle.
• Design your booth components to be reusable and recyclable.

And in the Do-As-I-Say-Not-As-I-Do Department, here's a Web page with the promising title, "Green tips for exhibitors" -- but the page offers only this:

For this years show National Funeral Exhibitions will be encouraging exhibitors and suppliers to improve environmental performance. An information sheet giving simple and practical green advice will be distributed to all exhibitors.

Translation: Nope, no info online, but we have eco-tips for you printed on dead trees. Epic Fail, as the kiddies say.

Photo hat tip: Alternative Consumer.