Hometown Hall

For many years, Atlanta has been called “the city in a forest,” largely thanks to the aerial view Hartsfield travelers see of skyscrapers nestled amongst the region’s famous prolific pines. Mayor Shirley Franklin is committed to her personal vision of making Atlanta one of America’s greenest cities. Many regional and national leaders in the growing sustainability movement call Atlanta and Georgia home. Increasingly, local governments are mandating green initiatives in order to conserve regulated resources and reduce waste. Enter Georgia’s first GreenBusiness Works EXPO, scheduled for October 7-8 at the Cobb Galleria Centre.

The brainchild of Atlanta entrepreneur Stephanie Armistead, the GreenBusiness Works EXPO is Atlanta’s first comprehensive environmental EXPO, designed to provide hands-on education for corporations and municipalities about sustainability programs, services and products available to support their environmental stewardship efforts. This unique event will provide leaders from throughout the Southeast with real-world best practices essential to developing and executing a long-term, sustainable business strategy.

Attendees will learn from leading experts who have already practiced sustainability successfully through exclusive educational programs, networking opportunities, best practices, leading case studies, and products and services that support corporate and community environmental stewardship efforts and positively impact ROI. Additionally, participants may attend educational tracks on topics such as green cleaning. The event offers 52 hours of learning on eight specific course tracks.

Sustainability experts Andy Savitz and Scott Seydel will keynote the conference on separate days. Savitz is a Yale graduate and senior strategist with Price Waterhouse Coopers. He is a recognized leader in green business strategies, as well as author of The Triple Bottom Line: How the Best Run Companies are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success - and How You Can Too. Seydel is President of The Seydel Companies and Chairman of Global Green USA, the former Soviet President Gorbachev’s global sustainability organization. He works directly, both personally and professionally to advance redirection and reduction of environmental waste.

“We could not have gotten a better “double-bill” of keynote speakers,” said Armistead, General Manager/Founder of GreenBusiness Works, the company that is behind the EXPO. “Andy‘s high-altitude, big picture view of how top ranking CSO’s have transitioned their companies toward more sustainable practices while maintaining brand and shareholder value on the first day of the EXPO will be followed by Scott’s discussion on day two of how his companies deliver on sustainable practices, walking the talk. In addition to these two top keynoters, we have recruited the best and brightest the region has to offer in terms of the seminars and learning sessions planned during the EXPO.”

According to Armistead, GreenBusiness Works EXPO will bring together corporate and municipal professionals: architects, brokers and environmental financiers, building owners and service contractors, contractors, developers, engineers, facility managers, city and state government agencies, human resources and marketing communication officers, commercial and residential interior designers, plant and project managers, real estate brokers, sustainability officers, and urban planners. Sponsors for the event include Southeast LINK, the Home Depot Foundation, Canvas Systems and Broadcast Atlanta.

Capping off the GreenBusiness Works EXPO will be an awards luncheon on October 8 honoring COX CONSERVES PROGRAM and one other unsung hero in sustainability who is walking the talk.

The EXPO will also include two Green Hall Meetings: a Solar Summit on Tuesday bringing together the brightest minds and best practices in an educational forum designed to demystify the technologies available to improve solar energy sourcing and on Wednesday a From Farm-to-Fork (hospitality and restaurants) discussion with moderator Ira Blumenthal of the Captain Planet Foundation.

Additionally, the EXPO will offer a hospitality track of courses on Wednesday leading up to the From Farm-to-Fork Green Hall meeting.

“We believe a targeted hospitality track geared toward leaders in this industry is important because of Atlanta and Georgia’s significant dependence on the hospitality industry for a large portion of our tax base,” said Dr. Debby Cannon, Director of the Cecil B. Day Hospitality School at Georgia State University, and GreenBusiness Works steering committee member who, along with her committee is planning the hospitality sessions. Already on tap for this track are sessions led by professionals from the Green Meetings Council, the Georgia Restaurant Association, the Green Foodservice Alliance and the City of Atlanta Office of Watershed Conservation.

Following the hospitality track, the closing session - the From Farm-to-Fork Green Hall Meeting, will enable hospitality professionals to dialogue with a panel of representatives from leading food distributors – from chain restaurant owners including George McKerrow (Ted’s Montana Grill) to mass food distributors such as Sodexo and US Food Service – about the challenges facing the industry as it works to deliver fresh, nutritious food in a sustainable way.

To view a schedule of educational sessions, learn about sponsorship or exhibitor opportunities or to register for the GreenBusiness Works EXPO, go to www.greenbusinessworksexpo.net or call 404-668-3616.

GreenBusiness Works was founded by Atlanta marketing communications and event production veteran Stephanie Armistead. GreenBusiness Works is a full-service marketing, communications and event production organization that produces environmentally aware events guided by the values and principles of GreenScape™ guidelines. GreenBusiness Works serves to educate and advocate sustainability through the GreenBusiness Works™ EXPO, Atlanta’s Tour of Green Homes and the Green Team Leadership.