June 2023

Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other.

Jane Goodall, English primatologist

Our Next SENFC Event

SENFC

New & Renewing Corporate Member

Joanna Berens - Joanna Berens Hospitality Inc

SENFC

New & Renewing Individual Members

Robin Frey - HelmsBriscoe

Paul Steen - HelmsBriscoe

John Buschman PhD - FIU

Mercedes Hunt - Marriott International

Lisa Pickersgill - Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium

Introducing SENFC's Newest Board Members

Chad Midnight

Co-founder

Chad Midnight is a young professional entrepreneur focused on disruption. After losing his mother from unsafe drinking water, Chad and his father invented Aqueduct to solve waste elimination and water security.

Aqueduct Water Systems is a water broker to dispense local spring water on tap off-grid. Its utility patented gravity-fed water tank uses multiple 5 gallon jugs to increase safety, convenience, and widen customer base so fresh quality water provides ZERO SINGLE-USE and +2000% Profit Margins per serving!

John Buschman

Assistant Professor, Director

Dr. John D. Buschman teaches global sustainable tourism at FIU’s Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism.

His work has centered on food waste reduction and recovery as well as the redistribution of nutrition to homeless and food-insecure populations.

He is particularly interested in the role that the events industry plays.

Highlights from June 1 networking event:

“Let’s Get Sustainable with Our Time, Budgets and Energy – Share How You Do More with Less!”

Supplied in a Miami Herald article on 5/16/23 written by Juli Fraga of The Washington Post: Checklist defining choices and aligning values to make accessible, Tackle emotional barriers to self-care, Align self-care with your emotional needs, Consider a “micro-break”, and Find a self-care buddy.
Learn to say no once in a while but offer an alternative.
Efficiency- We all have 24-hours. Focus on energy management instead of time management to make the most of your day.
Drink lots of water! A 1% drop in hydration results in a 12% drop in productivity.
When creating things post it on social media, not every day but frequent enough to address topics.
Use down time for self-care to avoid burnout.
Budget in food rescue and food waste prevention (add composting to food waste)
Don’t be afraid to walk from the bottom up. Encourage more sustainability practices.
Incorporate a Sustainability plan (learn how in our June 22 Educational Event!)
“The cool down” Weekly newsletter. On climate news, personal or professional recommendations.
Limit use of "stuff", and be conservative in ordering for your events.
Recycling is simple. Resist the urge to "Wish-Cycle".
Do morning routines, and your later tasks will be easier to complete. Momentum!

JOIN SENFC

And Learn how to be a sustainability enthusiast and advocate

SENFC now has a YouTube Channel

Watch recent educational programs.

www.youtube.com/@SENFC

Calendar of Events

June 22, 2023 (4:00pm ET) - SENFC Virtual Education: "Kick Start Your Sustainability Initiatives" Register

July 29, 2023 (3:30-6:00pm ET) - Solar Program and Climbing Social in St Augustine (sponsored by the North Florida Green Chamber of Commerce) Learn more

Fighting Food Waste at Meetings

As read in Meeting News

One-third of the food produced worldwide is wasted. In the United States, the amount is roughly 40 percent.
Women and children are disproportionately affected: 45 percent of child mortality worldwide is a result of hunger and related causes.
From 2019 to 2022, the number of undernourished people grew by as many as 150 million, a crisis driven largely by conflict, climate change and the global pandemic.

The meetings industry is part of the problem. As a planner and consultant on food safety, sustainability and inclusion, I see that same paradox played out at almost every event I attend. A bounty of food is served to attendees, and a disturbing amount of it ends up in the trash...

See more from Northstar Meetings Group.

Ditching the Dump

"Although food waste at events is just a small piece of the global food waste pie, there’s no reason to think event professionals and the properties in which they gather can’t come together to make the world just a little less wasteful. Many venues and hoteliers around the United States are tackling this issue as you read these words. Keep reading to find out how it’s being done."
See more from Smart Meetings.

Keeping Miami's Biscayne Bay Clean and Healthy

The Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management participated in the Baynanza event to help cleanup one of South Florida’s most important ecological waterways, which our beautiful Biscayne Bay campus is named after. Professor John Buschman and students from his Corporate Social Responsibility course, along with the Bacardi Center of Excellence, Professor Cristina Moguel, and students from our Coffee and Bartender’s Guilds helped run the event and put on an interactive experience focused on sustainable practices. Students created and gave out sustainable coffee grounds body scrub while serving responsibly and sustainably sourced coffee. They also created mocktails made with sustainable ingredients and served freshly baked bread made with spent grains. Thank you to all of the volunteers for supporting an amazing and important cause!

For more ideas on how you can support Earth Day, visit EarthDay.org.

Diverse 2023 Canadian Delegation for the G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance Summit in India

The G20 YEA Summit, held annually ahead of the widely known G20 Leaders’ Summit, serves as a platform for advising its governments on matters of business and entrepreneurship policy. The Alliance is a collective of organizations across the G20 countries that represent more than 500,000 young entrepreneurs, who meet every year to affect positive policy change and champion youth entrepreneurship worldwide.

The India Summit culminates with the delegates producing and issuing a communiqué on global entrepreneurship policy, which is presented to the G20 leaders during their subsequent Summit. The communiqué ensures the decision-makers worldwide prioritize the voices and perspectives of young entrepreneurs and keeps these recommendations at the forefront throughout the year.

Chad Midnight will once again be advising on Climate and energy entrepreneurship for a sustainable future, and clean water access. See his 2022 input here.

FIU Student-led “green team” diverts over 40 tons of waste at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival®

Over 40 tons of waste is staying out of landfills thanks to a green initiative launched at the 22nd annual South Beach Wine & Food Festival® and led by students and their professor in the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management under the guidance of Clean Vibes, a company dedicated to responsible on-site event waste management.

The team handled 47,960 pounds of recycling, 14,300 pounds of compost and 23,867 pounds of rescued food.

“For a first-year partnership with a very small window of time for planning, we exceeded our expectations in terms of both cooperation between Clean Vibes, the festival and the FIU team as well as in regard to the amount of waste that we were able to divert from the landfill,” said Anna Borofsky, Clean Vibes co-owner.

The Circular Economy. Avoiding Waste and Fixing Broken Value Systems

As read in Circularity Weekly, a GreenBiz newsletter

While none of us are comfortable with it, we are all quite familiar with the current linear economy. Frankly, it can be tough to imagine anything different.

A new Circularity Gap report by Circle Economy and Deloitte recently reported that global circularity rates decreased from 9.1 percent in 2018 to 8.6 percent in 2020 and to only 7.2 percent in 2023. The global circularity number is not abstract. It represents waste in our supply chains, waste at manufacturing facilities, products being disposed of too early, and the list goes on.

This steady decline — even as the concept of circularity is becoming better understood and gaining attention — is sobering to say the least. The community of circular economy professionals does many things, but one thing we don't do is give up. The backslide in circularity is distressing, yes, but it's also a reminder that without our efforts, we'd be headed even faster in the wrong direction.