Green Facts
The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority (MCCA) places a great deal of attention on maintaining a clean environment and promoting green practices.
Completed in 2004, the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center (BCEC) took extra measures to ensure that the area's environment surrounding the building would not be detrimentally impacted by the facility. Located near historic Boston Harbor, which just went through a major transformation and is now one of the cleanest harbors in the country, the BCEC recognizes the importance of its role in protecting the environment of the Harbor and the City of Boston as a whole.
As a stapled landmark due to its intimate urban setting in the Back Bay, the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center is taking steps, along with the BCEC, in strengthening its environmental stance and operations. Reducing waste, energy minimization and water conservation are some of the environmental initiatives the Hynes has implemented.
Some of our many initiatives in protecting the environment at the BCEC and Hynes include:
Clean Air
- The convention centers have an urban location, easily accessible to its visitors. The MCCA strongly encourages the use of public transportation and walking. We provide walking maps of the city and promote the pedestrian friendliness of both our convention centers as Boston is known as America's Walking City.
- Our cleaning service has replaced 50% of their vacuums with “Hepa” filters that clean dust particles from the air.
Energy Minimization
- The BCEC by reducing lights, power, and HVAC use during move-in and move-out in the exhibit halls.
- Sensor-controlled lighting is used throughout the convention center, in its executive offices, as well as meeting and conference rooms to turn off lights in meeting rooms when not in use.
Water Conservation
- The convention centers offers large, spring water coolers in each meeting room rather than individual bottles, reducing waste.
- Restrooms have low-flow toilets and other water-saving devices.
Reducing Waste
The convention centers have a policy in place to reduce and reuse when and where possible.
- Recycling: The MCCA provides recycling receptacles in each meeting room and pre-function areas. These receptacles collect paper, plastic and glass. Additional materials recycled include aluminum, cardboard, food waste and grease.
» Paper: white paper is now collected from all MCCA offices and recycled
» Bottles: All bottles and cans are separated from the waste stream by both Aramark and Unicco. The local South Boston Redemption Center picks up all contents for recycling.
» Food: Perishables that can not be donated to charitable organizations is separated and moved to local farms to be turned into compost. Food waste is collected by Aramark at the end of each function and brought to a food waste “only” dumpster for removal and composting. Two dumpsters are available per exhibit hall to help with implementation of composting system.
- Donation:
» Pallets: All pallets left from events and deliveries are collected, stacked on the loading dock, and donated to local organizations.
» Carpet: carpet padding left behind from shows is separated and donated to local organizations. If no organization is found, the carpet is shipped to a recycling facility in Framingham for recycling into cement blocks and asphalt to be used on state highways.
- Purchasing
» More than 80% of the bathroom supplies, such as hand towels and toilet paper, are recycled products.
» More than 80% of the cleaning products for carpets, floors, kitchens and bathrooms are environmentally responsible.
- The engineering and maintenance department's HVAC Team installed a new non-chemical based condenser water treatment system provided to the MCCA at no cost for use on a trial basis. This system may eliminate up to $10,000.00 in chemical based products now used to sanitize this system.
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GREEN ENVIRONMENT
